By Terry Philips

Good quality and fresh ingredients are the staple of all Peruvian cuisine – and the secret of the success. Kitchens were able to develop dishes – whether they were low value or high – thanks to the imported traditional foods of immigrants mixed with local ingredients.

This, combined with an astounding passion for food, tasty food, led to a certain culinary magic – in kitchens, on the street and in restaurants of all levels, now spread out around the world. Although each region and major city has its own speciality and contribution to Peruvian cuisine, one of the major contributors to the national cuisine is the country´s coastal strip.

The flavorful and fresh simplicity of ceviche is the face of cuisine up and down the coast, and there is a great emphasis on this dish across the country; the classic has only five ingredients, fresh raw fish, lime, salt, chilli and onion, with corn and sweet potato on the side. The original pre-Hispanic ceviches were soaked for hours in chicha de jora (a fermented corn beer) to ‘cook’ the fish and later for similarly long time periods in lime juice; the raw fish culture that came with the immigrants of Japan is where ceviche first got the quick bathing in lime. This freshness can be found in all the most popular seafood dishes from the classic causa (mashed yellow potato sandwiches with a seafood stuffing) to the more recent tiradito – the fusion of Japanese sashimi culture (here in the form of wafer thin slices of fresh fish or seafood) and Peruvian limes, sauces and chilli.

The influences from immigrants are most strongly noted in Lima where the Chinese stir-fry tradition has led to thousands of Chifas (Chinese-Peruvian restaurants) and one of the nation’s favourite dishes, lomo saltado – stir-fried strips of beef with tomatoes, cilantro, chilli, fries and soy sauce. From the Spanish came more complex cooking styles and new basic ingredients that are now so completely integrated in the criollo cuisine countrywide they are almost impossible to distinguish. Everything from pork (giving us the delicious fried pork, Chicharron) and chicken (pollo a la brasa, or spit roasted chicken is found everywhere in the city and is a superb example of how Peruvians have managed to create something special from a very typical dish) to sugarcane and all the subsequent sweet delights that pepper the tail of every menu (suspiro de limeño and picarrones being truly unmissable). The African slaves who came with them brought a hearty soul to the criollo cuisine – fried rice and beans that make up a tacu-tacu (often served with a friend egg on top) or beef hearts on skewers, anticuchos. (Although it is widely accepted that the tradition of cooking with skewers has Arabic origins – imported by the Spanish due to their many Arabic influences.)

Gaston Acurio has said that as you travel south of Lima the food gets redder with rocotto, and the further north one travels the greener the food becomes from cilantro. To the south of Lima the most notable culinary centre is Arequipa where the rocotto, a fiery doppelganger for a red capsicum, truly does reign supreme, stuffed with everything from minced meat to a creamy seafood broth as one of the city’s most notable dishes, rocotto relleno. The other great AriquipeñChupe de Camarones is a Friday institution and dish that remains a strong tradition in the city of Arequipa – a rich, creamy, but powerful shrimp chowder.

Heading up the coast from Lima there are still a massive variety of fresh fish and seafood dishes available, although with some slight differences in preparation and flavour due to a warmer climate and sea. Cevice de conchas negras (black clam) from Tumbes and Puira is the seafood dish that the north is best known for. It is widely touted as being one of the most delicious ceviches, but due to over-harvesting the species are in danger of extinction and although still available in some restaurants, it should be avoided until such time as stocks recover. The other famous dish along the north coast is a stew or seco, most commonly known in the form seco de cabrito – goat marinated in chicha de jora and cooked with lots of cilantro and garlic.

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