Peruvian food primer on video

Posted Sep 18th 2006 12:05PM by Joe DiStefano
Filed under: Lunch, Breakfast, Dinner, South America, Fish, Poultry, Cheese, Food Oddities, Shellfish, Meat

Peruvian cuisine's myriad roots, including Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, African and Italian, make it one of the world's first fusion cuisines. It's also highly regarded. Famed French chef Escoffier ranked it third after French and Chinese. It's certainly in my Top 10.

Last spring the Peruvian government announced plans to popularize Peruvian cuisine in the U.S. "We want our food to be as well known as Thai is in this country. ... We want Peruvian restaurants everywhere," Alejandro Riveros the head of public diplomacy for the Embassy of Peru, told The Washington Post.

The above video by Prom Peru, the country's tourism board, is part of the publicity effort. It's loaded with stunning shots of the Andes and the country's coast all set to traditional music.

The video also features mouth-watering images of food. It leads off with the preparation of one of my all-time favorite Peruvian dishes, ceviche. Although there's no narration, the video does a decent job of showing the preparation of the fish as it's cooked in lime. The viewer is also treated to images of other popular Peruvian fare, including aji de gallina, or chicken in a spicy cheese sauce. It also features two of the country's favorite beverages, the pisco sour and chicha morada.

But what I find most interesting about this video, apart from how damn hungry it makes me, is the dishes that I haven't heard of. One in particular comes to mind, alpaca con risotto de trigo. Now I've eaten cuy, or guinea pig, a Peruvian delicacy not included in the promo for some reason, but alpaca's a new one on me.

Tags: aji de gallina, AjiDeGallina, Alejandro Riveros, AlejandroRiveros, alpaca con risotto de trigo, AlpacaConRisottoDeTrigo, Andes, ceviche, chicha morada, ChichaMorada, Escoffier, Peru, Peruvian cuisine, PeruvianCuisine, pisco, pisco sour, PiscoSour, risotto

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-05-2006 @ 8:50PM

teresa said...

Just a correction to your last paragraph. I'm sure that "alpaca" (an animal from the Andes) is a typo. The word has to be "albaca" which means "basil." That makes sense. Peruvians eat a lot of "albaca sauces" or pesto sauces. No, I've never heard of anybody in Peru eating alpacas!! PLEASE MAKE A CORRECTION.

10-05-2006 @ 8:59PM

Joe D. said...

Teresa,
Thanks for the note. I'm well aware of basil-infused sauces like the one that's served with spaghetti. And I'd love to make a correction,but I can't. After a little digging, I learned that Peruvians do eat alpaca. Please see http://www.laritz.info/archives/000364.html for a fascinating description.

11-06-2006 @ 12:55AM

Carlo Montero said...

The alpaca is an exotic plate from the Andes of Peru and The alpaca is a camelid of South America.

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