Peru's Varied Cuisine

Peru's cuisine is gaining international fame for its blending of indigenous, Spanish, African, Chinese and Japanese influences with the rich and varied produce of land and sea. But the passion for good food extends beyond the cosmopolitan kitchens of Lima. Traditional meals from rustic or wild ingredients offer new culinary experiences throughout the coast, mountains and jungle regions.

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Two local women selling chicha -- a refreshing drink made from maize -- in the Urubamba valley between Cuzco and Machu Picchu. The non-alcoholic purple-coloured chicha de mora is a different kettle of fish from fermented chicha, which looks like a thick home-brewed beer and is not recommended for the unaccustomed.

One of the unexpected delights of the jungle city of Iquitos is the incredibly delicious ice cream, including flavours made from exotic jungle fruits like cocona, taperiba and aguaje. A scoop or two under the whirling fans of Giomatta's takes the edge off the intense humidity of an Amazon afternoon.

There are few tastier meals than the Arequipan parrillada, cooked outside in the clear valley air with a cool breeze drifting down from the volcanoes. This is lamb, but pork is the predominant meat, marinated in chicha, chili and herbs and served with Andean potatoes and a yellow chili sauce.

You don't have to worry about keeping your weight up in Peru's jungle. Tacacho is made from unripened banana fried in pork fat. It oesn't sound appetising, but some credit it for the healthily voluptuous figures common in the jungle regions. The meat is cecina, a smoky cut of pork.

The restaurant is in Arequipa, but the meals are comida norteña, the food from Peru's northern coast which is perhaps the tastiest in the country. Chinese influences mix with the rich seafood of Peru's cold-water coast to create a dish such as arroz chaufa con mariscos -- fried rice with shellfish. Another well-known northern dish is the coriander-imbued seco de cabrito, a spicy stew of tender goat.

Deep blue light suffuses the evening on the banks of the Ucayali river, two days by boat from Pucallpa. The fruit is called guavilla by the locals. Within a long green casing that looks like a giant bean, a thin layer of edible silk flesh is wrapped around shiny black seeds. Fruits and other food brought on board by settlers from the caserios add welcome variety to the monotonous on-board rations for travellers heading down river to Iquitos.

Interesting new delicacies can be found even within the dense Amazon jungle. Most palm-type trees have edible larvae or suri within their branches. The larvae have a slight taste of coconut, and eating them is not as unpleasant an experience as this photo suggests, but I'm ready to believe they're tastier when fried.

Delicacies made from unusual and unidentified meat cuts are common on the street corners and market stalls of Peru. The consistently tastiest and most wholesome of them are anticuchos. These are strips of beef heart fried on a hot plate and served on a skewer with tender potato and yellow chili -- delicious on a cold Andean evening.

It may look spiky and unappetising on the outside, but the fruit of the tuna cactus, which grows wild throughout the dry areas of Peru, is sweet and juicy. This woman has collected a basket of tuna in the countryside near Arequipa to sell on the city streets, and dexterously whips off the outer layer of skin to reveal flesh that is either light orange or lime green.

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