Lima's Food Scene

Appetizer at Central

The New York Times has chosen Lima, Peru as one of its 52 Travel Destinations for 2020, citing its extraordinary food, so it is good that we are going to have a couple days to visit, although I don't think we can afford to eat at Central (where we could have a 17 course tasting menu for $130) or Maido which is Nikkei cuisine (Japanese-Peruvian) so you know it will be expensive. We have a day in Lima at the beginning of each trip (the Amazon and then Machu Picchu), probably to wait for tour members to arrive.  On each of these days we have the morning free, then meet up with our guide and other tour group members to have a Peruvian lunch and an orientation walk in Miraflores.  Then we have the rest of the afternoon and evening free and need to find our own restaurant for dinner.  We also have a day in Lima to visit the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History in the colonial center but have to find our own lunch and then have the afternoon free.  I'm doing research so that we know where to go, what to order and what we can afford.  Peru has its own vocabulary for its dishes so I'm going to keep a glossary of terms on my iPhone.

The Culinary Institute of America has short (2-3 minute) YouTube videos on Peruvian food.  So here's a culinary lesson and a nice overview of Peruvian food and what we can expect.

Peru Part 1: Exploring Peru: Land of Contrasts and Crossroads
Peru Part 2: Peru's Kitchen, Where Cultures Merge
Peru Part 3: Dining in Lima, Peru, from Humble to Haute
Peru Part 4: Where Ceviche was Born
Peru Part 5: Causa, An Exercise in Creativity
Peru Part 6: Anticuchos, Peru's Favorite Street Food
Peru Part 7: Pisco
Peru Part 8: Peru's Influences from China and Japan
Peru Part 9: Culinary Treasures of the Amazon (most of the sound track is missing)
Peru Part 10: Cooking in the Peruvian Andes
Peru Part 11: Pachamanca, a Peruvian Harvest Feast

I also unearthed a Peruvian cookbook that Fernando brought back for me ten years ago:  Cocina Peruana:  nuestro sabor para el mundo, a collection of contemporary recipes from various restaurants.  Ten years ago I probably felt the chefs had taken too many liberties with traditional dishes but there still is a thread of Peruviness running through the dishes.  The recipes in the book are from restaurants in Lima, some of which are near our hotel:
Segundo Muelle (in San Isidro)
José Antonio
Brujas de Cachiche (about 10 blocks from the hotel)
El Señorío de Sulco
Huaca Pucllana Restaurante (by the archeological site of Huaca Pucllana which I would like to see).
Unfortunately I don't think we can afford to eat at any of these either: they have tablecloths and require reservations, but I'm sure we can do just fine at more modest establishments like the ones below.  And we can always just have a gelato for dinner at Gelato Mío a few doors down from the Casa Andina hotel.  Or we could go out for pastries at Pasteleria San Antonio or for wood-fired rotisserie chicken at Villa Chicken.

Sangrecita

But back to Peruvian specialties.  For an introduction to the various dishes we may encounter, read the Wikipedia article on Peruvian Cuisine.  Reviewing the menu at La Vaquita, I can see that I'm going to have to find translations for some of the dinner entrées:  Entraña (skirt steak), Picaña (sirloin cap or rump cap), Anticucho (beef heart kebabs), Panceta (pork belly).  Also for the breakfast items: untables (spreads like butter), choripan (chorizo in a bun), Peruanos (a sandwich of pork and fried sweet potato that is a breakfast staple).  Fernando will want to try the Sangrecita (made with chicken blood) and the Relleno (made with pork blood).

Tamalitos verdes piuranos

Del Mar has Tamalitos verdes piuranos which are a special unfilled green tamal made with fresh corn and cilantro (culantro) from the northern region of Piura.  Also Choritos a la Chalaca, mussels with a relish on top.  And of course, variations on that national potato dish, causa, with seafood.
Panchita (with $$$ and no prices on the menu) has a fiesta del tamal for a piqueo (starter) that offers 5 different tamales:  Corn tamal, creole maize filled with pork, cilantro tamal filled with cheese, Marthita quinoa tamal, and artichoke tamal; served with salsa criolla.  Panchita also has a selection of "platos criollos de toda la vida" among which is one that Fernando should really like, called the "classico":  Sabroso dúo de cau cau y sangrecita con yuca y sarza.   That is tripe soup and chicken blood rice with yuca and salsa criolla.

Salsa Criolla

Salsa criolla or sarza criolla, by the way, appears all over the place in Lima.  It is a fresh relish with red onions, fresh chile, cilantro and lime and its spiciness depends on the chile pepper and the maker.  They serve it with tamales, on top of sanguches, along side tacu-tacu (leftover rice and beans mixed together and fried into a patty and then topped with steak and a fried egg).  I hope the Peruvian red onions are milder than the ones I find in MY supermarket...

In any case, this is just the tip of the iceberg of Peruvian food and I haven't even explored that national raw fish dish:  ceviche (or cebiche as you will often find it written).  I read somewhere that before the Spaniards brought limes to the New World, the indigenous peoples would use fermented passion fruit (curuba) juice instead.  That sounds even better to me.