At long last... foods.

Food Blog Well folks, as promised, here is the blog about some of the foods that I found to be blog worthy during my travels. I realize that I have been stateside all summer, but here it is, and I guess better late than never?: Anywho, here we go: 1) First up. Rocoto Relleno. I have probably written about this one before so I'll be brief. Additionally, this picture was taken by my friend Joe, as were the next few items. I have these pictures, so I'm throwing them into the mix for more substance. Rocoto is a pepper native to the Andean region that is comparable to Habaneros on the Scoville hottness chart. I find them to have the best flavor of hot things that I have tasted, but I'm incredible biased since before Peru, I had no tolerance for anything spicy. I initially had my baptism by fire (a pun you see) because I was trying to deaden my tongue so as not to taste a certain food that I disliked and repeatedly had to eat when I first arrived at peru. I ended up loving both the peppers, and the dish which I was trying to suppress. (It was tortillas made from egg and day old rice if you are wondering). ANYWAY- Rocoto Relleno is THE signature dish of Arequipa. It usually is served with pastel de papa, and chichorron de chancho (something like potato and cheese casserole and fried pork). This is called a "doble" in restaurants, and is usually pretty cheap. Probably around 10-15 soles. (under 5 bucks). The "relleno" -stuffing- consists of small beef chunks, peas, carrots, olives, raisins, and cheese. These rocotos can vary greatly in spicyness, so approach with caution. I like to cut up everything and mix it all together, rocoto, relleno, pastel, etc. My wife likes to just eat the filling and leaves the rocoto. She is a very lame Arequipeñan, but alas, I pull my weight and hers as well by eating enough "picante" (spicy food) for the both of us.

2) Kabab- A thing that Joe finds delightful, which I find pretty mediocre. This is actually a Peru fastfoodish chain that derives it's inspiration from the Turkey region of the world. Hence the name, "El Turko". They serve kababs and things of that nature. The chicken one is pretty tasty, but all in all, this item is sort of like including a review of Beto's Mexican food if I were writing about authentic US food (of which there isn't much). This isn't Peruvian in origin, but Peruvians seem to dig it. I'm pretty sure I slaughtered the spelling and whatnot, and Joe knows better, and I invite him to post an addendum to all of these foods that he tried.

3) Chinchuli- Another one of Joe's contributions, it is basically fried intestine. I'm not sure from which animal, and I'm fairly certain I don't much care. I never tried it. I am open to new things, but I figure, there are much better things to eat. Joe didn't like it much. So thats all I have to report on that.

4) Crepe- These are from France I believe, but like the kababs, they are liked in Peru. You can go to a place called El Crepisimo, which I also have probably written about, and get some awesome crepes. Some like the banana/nutella crepe, are sweet. Some are salty, like the ham and cheese. But they are mostly delicious.

5) Mate de coca- This is basically coca leaf natural tea. It tastes kind of minty and deadens the tongue a smidge. The members of the LDS church who may be concerned if this violates the "no-tea" rule should be assured because every authority from the prophet to my mission president has not only consumed it themselves for the altitude, but recommended it to others as a remedy. So there you go. It's really cheap, and VERY common in places like Puno and Cuzco. Drink some to deal with a headache or to help you digest all those Kabab/chinchuli's you've been munching on. Interesting side note, Mate (Tea) de Manzanilla is chamomile tea in the US. Took me years to realize that. I prefer Manzanilla to all others: coca, san luis, anis, etc.

6) Atomatada- This picture dosn't do it much justice, because the meat looks gristly, boney, and gross. BUT, it's delicious. And as for the meat quality, sometimes OCCASIONALLY the meat is all of the aforementioned, but you can usually scrape off enough good stuff to get by. Atomatada is sautéed tomato and beef or chicken, generally served with potato and rice. It's salty and tasty. Also, while potato and rice might sound starchily redundant, if you stay in Peru for any length of time you will accustom yourself to it and find it works out fine.

7) Paneton- This stuff is good, but I don't much like it anymore. I think I've mentioned this before, but as a missionary I was in Peru for 2 years. That meant 2 Christmases, and since this is a BIG part of the Navidad celebration in Peru, I was given LOTS of it. It is usually served with hot chocolate, and divided up at any and all social events surrounding the holidays. It is basically a fluffy lemon cake-like loaf that has little gummy things and raisins sprinkled throughout. That's right, it's the Peru equivalent of fruitcake, except that paneton is actually edible. It's common for employers to provide a paneton for each of their employees before Christmas break, and no Christmas party is complete without at least one paneton. I've seen paneton advertised with chocolate chips in lieu of the gummies, but I've never been fortunate enough to try it.

8) Truncha- This is trout. In Cuzco and Puno, it's pretty popular, and I liked this particular restaurant located about 30 minutes south along Lake Titicaca from Puno, in a little town I wrote about earlier called Chiquito. Anyway, there is a pretty well known restaurant in the plaza, I forget the name, but it's the only one, so if you find yourself there, you will undoubtably be able to locate it in short order. Their specialty is trout, and I thought it was great. It came with... shockingly, potato and rice.

9) Pollo a la piña- Pineapple Chicken. I'm not sure if this is strictly Peruvian, but it is my mother-in-law's best dish, among many good dishes. It has specially fried chicken (rather, chicken fried in a special way), and the sauce consists of chives, carrots, peppers, sweet and sour sauce, and pineapples. On rice of course. It is delicious. Really, delicious.

10) Papa a la Huancaína- This is just good ol potato with a special sauce. The sauce has peanut, ají amarillo (yellow pepper), cheese, and some other stuff. I'm not exactly sure, but its good. It usually is served on a bit of lettuce with a hard boiled egg and perhaps an olive. It's not a main course, but it's filling so be careful not to order this when you aren't filling particularly hungry in addition to your main course.

11) Calzone- These are served in various pizzerias (pizza stores.. obviously). While not Peruvian, they have some AWESOME ideas of them. One, the Hawaiian, has not just pineapple and mozzarella and ham, but also peaches and even more mozzarella. It's a beautiful thing and you can find them even in fast foodish chains in the food courts of the malls or stores like Plaza Vea (the Peruvian version of Wal-Mart). The one pictured in here was devoured with much glee during the Fiesta de la Candelaria in Puno. If you are going to eat at a Pizzaria, there are several great ones I can recommend. In Cuzco there is one called "La Romana". and my favorites in Puno are "El Buho" and "Pizzeria Jhutmay" (The owners of the latter are LDS, and there is an awesome woven picture of Jesus Christ right by the main desk). I believe they can be found easily enough, just jump into a taxi in the main plaza and ask the driver, they know where they are (Puno isn't all that big). Shouldn't be more then 10 blocks from the plaza. Anywho, this calzone was a calzone de carne, and it had hamburger meat and cheese and eggs inside. What you can see on top of the calzone is what really makes it shine, rocoto molido (which is ubiquitous in all resaurants and can be used on most foods to make them even more awesome and spicy), and garlic sauce. The garlic sauce seems to be garlic with mayo and lemon, I'm not certain but it's so good I am tempted to use a credit card to separate a few lines out and to snort them straightaway. Believe me when I say that I am a fan of the calzone. Also, all of these pizzarias serve what is called "pizza a la leña", which is pizza over firewood in special adobe ovens. Great stuff.

12) Torta de Mil Hojas de Chocolate. Thousand layers cake, chocolate style. This was really good, and for my birthday. This was too sweet, and impossible to eat without milk, but still good. This cake has many layers, as the name implies, and each layer consists of manjar (which is something like carmel, but better), and a wafer-like crusty material. The second type of cake here was just some normal variant of chocolate, but it looked and tasted really good, so I threw it in. Notice the manjar. It is my opinion that all desserts should include manjar, this stuff is sooooo good.

Now going a bit farther south, to Chile: 13) Ají Chileno- This stuff is kind of like tabasco sauce. I'm a rocoto snob, so I found it infuriatingly inferior to Peru's picante stuff, but it's not bad. They (Chileans) don't get as into the spicy element with quite the same gusto as Peruvians anyway.

14) Argentine Steak. Steak,.... From Argentina. While that may sound pretty silly to include, you wouldn't think that if you've ever tried it. My cousin Claudio has an awesome (previously described) restaurant in Limache, and this is what he served me during my visit. It's a bit of bovine heaven on a plate.

For the sake of brevity, here were the other noteworthy items served during that meal (Pictures in order): ensalada, pan, and pebre.

Chileans and Peruvians alike are big on some version of salad, whether it is like the one pictured here, with some cabbage, lettuce, carrots, potato salad, beets, tomato, tuna/mayo, and lime some other combination or variant, they usually serve some salad. It's healthy, and good for you. Word of caution to tourists, sometimes lettuce is hard to clean, so don't eat it in dodgy looking establishments. Chances are, you may contract some mean parasite that will make you long for death. Pan, bread, is ubiquitous and fresh wherever you roam in Peru/Chile, so eat it often and enjoy. Chileans like "pebre" on their bread, which is: onions, cilantro, tomato, and lemon. I LOVE pebre, as do all good Chileans. 15) Carne Molido- This is greasy, meaty, and pretty tasty. Basically pureed hamburger with mashed potatoes, it probably isn't very good for you, but it's good tasting. There are onions thrown in there somewhere I believe, and I put ají on mine and it seemed to get even better. For those of you who are wondering why I didn't mention Lomitos or Super-completos thus far, I'm sorry. I haven't had my camera when I've eaten those things. I'll get them next trip though, never fear.

16) Helados- A critical part of ANY trip to Peru or Chile, are the helados (Ice Creams). We have lots of good stuff in the States, most of which I haven't even tried, but I have to say that ice creams in S. America are awesome. This one is called a "Mega, Frambuesa". Raspberry. It is really rich and delicious. Kind of steep, this one cost me about a buck fifty, but it was worth it.

There are MANY different types of helados, and to do full reviews of each would require more photos than I have and more time than I am willing to devote to the subject. I will just mention two from Peru that I really like, and recommend, after that, you really can't go wrong with helados. First, Huracan. These are kind of like Orange Dreams from the US, if you know what those are. Fruit popsicle-like stuff wrapped around a vanilla creamy center part. They have strawberry (my personal fav), orange, maracuya (passion fruit), and mango. Try them all. These run only 2 soles, so less than a dollar. Second, Frio Ricos. These are kind of like Drum Sticks from the US, but WAY better. They have lots of flavors, like Cappuccino (not Mormon friendly in all likelihood), Apple, Chocolate carmel, lucuma (a delicious fruit that makes an even better ice cream flavor),etc. They are ever changing up the new big flavor so I couldn't tell you what to go for, but I am a sucker for anything with a chocolate cone. (FYI, the Frio Rico Black and the Cappuccino one both sport the chocolate cone). They cost about a dollar. 17) Last but certainly not least, Empanadas. Specifically, empanadas that have some seafood in them. Both Peru and Chile have empanadas, and if you are in Peru, a "triple" (Chiken, ham, cheese) is really good, and I die for the Arabe (rocoto, hamburger, onion). But in the world of empanadas, Chile will always reign king in my opinion. If you can get up to a place called "Con Con", you can have the most awesome seafood empanadas ever. But for my visit, a place called "Los Vilos" supplied me with my empanada fix. There are several kinds, crab, shrimp, fish, squid, oyster, etc. But my favorite is the shrimp one. It's delicious. Empanada de Cameron, can't go wrong.

Food is one of my favorite ways to discover a new culture, and I hope the things that I have listed have peaked your interest to explore some new foods. In Provo/Orem, there are 3 Peruvian restaurants and 2 Chilean restaurants. They are obviously limited in menu but I frequent them occasionally and if you must go somewhere in Utah county, I'd say for Peruvian food, head to "La Carreta". But, if you can wander up to West Valley in Salt Lake, "El Rocoto" is even better. For Chilean food, I'm not sure about SLC, but here in Provo I'm given to understand that "Pantrucos" is the place to go. In any rate, I'm going on a long posting freeze because I'm going to be stuck here in Utah for the next foreseeable future.