Peruvian Eats

I know this is long overdue, but I figured I would share some of the highlights of my trip to Peru this past winter break. I sadly realized this semester that I will not be able to visit my grandmother in Peru next year since I start work in June and won’t have enough time off to journey to Peru. This afternoon, I went through my food photos from Peru, and I definitely salivated quite a bit. I will have to live vicariously through my blog photos come Christmastime (can you even live vicariously through a blog, or does it have to be through a person?)

My last trip to Peru was particularly special since I travelled with a friend and visited not only Lima but also Cusco, Machu Picchu, and the Amazon Rainforest. I was thus able to experience a diverse sampling of Peruvian cuisine and note differences among the various regions.

Since Lima is on the coast, you can find great seafood there. There are amazing cevicherias in Lima which serve many varieties of ceviche. You can also find good Japanese and Chinese food in Lima, but please if you ever get Chinese food, be careful because there are some sketchy restaurants there too! Since Cusco is near the Andes, there is much less seafood. If I recall correctly, trout is pretty popular in Cusco. Cusco seemed to be the land of quinoa. My friend loves quinoa, and I think she had it everyday we were there. The food in the Amazon was fairly simple – rice, some sort of protein, fried yuka, and tropical fruit. I was not in love with the food there because the lodge I stayed in salted the food quite a bit. I did eat the piranha that my friend caught though. Note that we went fishing, and I did not catch a single fish! There was very little flesh on the piranha, but the little meat I had was surprisingly good. I admit it was not too fun to look at the sharp teeth of the piranha carcass. (Was that too graphic?)

Grandma knows best: spinach pie (pastel d’espinaca), eggplant pie (pastel de berenjena), smoked salmon, salad of tomatoes, avocados, and hearts of palm

Ceviche mixto, La Mar restaurant in Lima (If you want to read more about La Mar check out my earlier blog post here)

Grilled sea bass with a side of veggies, Hotel Los Delfines, Lima

Tapas: octopus, eggplant, sausage, avocado and something else I am blanking on now (from closest to farthest), a quaint restaurant in the district of Barranco, Lima

Grilled steak with potato croquettes and sautéed veggies, restaurant in Cusco

Risotto with asparagus and mushrooms, same restaurant in Cusco

Grilled trout over a bed of quinoa, Greens restaurant in Cusco

Live piranha from the Amazon! (don’t worry I didn’t eat the piranha while it was alive)