"Andes" news and stories

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.

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Although it's a few years old, a Christian Science Monitor story about Peru's diverse yet dwindling variety of tubers is still fascinating. In a scenario not uncommon to "heirloom" produce, the thousands of varieties of potatoes developed by Andean farmers over the last 8,000 years are falling out of favor due to newer varieties that are cheaper and easier to grow. The CSM cites a few varieties whose names translate to things like "flat like a cow's tongue," "like a woman with the colors of a condor's neck," and "makes the daughter-in-law weep." The latter apparently refers to a very bumpy potato used to test a prospective wife's peeling skills. The International Potato Center, based in Peru, is one of the main forces trying to conserve the region's tubers. Their Potato Park is one example. According to the CSM, the Center also maintains a gene bank with over 8,000 different potato specimens, half of which come from the Andes.