(Lima, Peru)

I really enjoyed my culinary tour of Cusco and all of the food that I ate in Peru.  Looking back at my photos, even though I included a number of them in my blog already, I see that there are quite a few more food-related ones that I’d like to share.

I haven’t paid too much attention to appetizers in this blog, but they were invariably very tasty.  One of my favourite dishes was the quinoa-stuffed piquillos with honey and goat cheese; unfortunately, the photo didn’t turn out very well.  Below is a salad and some appetizers from our first day in the Sacred Valley.  There was also a very, very hot pepper that didn’t quite make the photo!

Next, there was the alpaca.  Some people find it too dry for their tastes but I found it perfect for mine.  I don’t eat a lot of red meat and, when I do, I prefer it to be well-done.  My favourite version was probably the blueberry alpaca I had in Aguas Calientes after returning from Machu Picchu.

As a result of my preferences, I didn’t try either anticuchos (skewered beef hearts) or ceviche (raw fish/seafood “cooked” in lime juice).  However, it was easy to find other interesting food to try.  We dined in Lima on both the first and last days of the tour; on both occasions I had a variation on drunk chicken!  On the first day, I had chicken in port sauce over a local version of risotto that was made from wheat rather than rice.  On the last day in Lima, I had chicken in beer sauce with green rice (with a bottle of Cusquena to complement the meal).  It was a nice way to end the trip.

I also managed to visit another food market in Cusco, the day after my culinary tour.  The photo at top of this post was taken in the “fruit district”; the photo directly below was taken in the “potato district” of the market.  The diversity of food in Peru was astonishing – there were approximately 1000 varieties each of both corn and potatoes.  The corn was often huge:  the kernels were about 5 times the size of what we are used to in Canada.

Way back in February, Ian B. asked me whether I would ever eat at an overseas McDonald’s restaurant.  Although I didn’t deliberately set out to do so, I did just that on my final day in Cusco.  A variety of factors led to this, including the fact that the Cusco franchise was right on the main square and was showing the Belgium/Argentina World Cup quarter-final.  I settled on the “Chicken McBites” meal, supplemented with both local “aji” sauce and ketchup for the French fries.  The convenience and novelty made it interesting, although the best part of the meal was the aji sauce.

I’m now back in Canada until the first week of August.  I expect that I’ll have some more to say about Peru but right now I am enjoying spending a few weeks at home and (finally) getting to play a few soccer games.   I’m also using this time to plan as much as I can for my remaining months of travel.  I’ll be talking about this critical “halfway point” in a future posting – my itinerary will be taking some unexpected but exciting turns!