ANTICUCHOS
Selling ready cooked food, be it outside your home or in a busy street is a big part of Peruvian culture. Word of mouth and logistics play a key role in the success of the enterprise. Full meals, snacks and hot and cold beverages are sold on the street in all of Peru. Most of the vendors are informal and so adhering to the Health and Safety Laws is often hit and miss but street food is cheaper than what can be bought in a restaurant and can also be tastier. To me watching your food being cooked in front of you adds to the experience and taste when satisfying your stomach.
Economically this kind of cuisine plays a big part in the local economy as normally all the raw material is sourced locally mostly from the local outdoor Mercado (market). Running costs are low and if tables and seating are provided these are often deemed rustic but as you know low outlay means higher profit.
Let me give you an example; Use a small table from your home, add 2 stools and a couple of inexpensive plastic jugs, disposable cups and you have the makings of a fruit juice stand. Squeeze the oranges or liquidize the fruit you are going to sell and voila you have a business with a very low initial outlay. {photograph could be used here, your call?}
There is a marvelous variety of foodstuff that you can buy here and at specific times of the day. Early morning is breakfast time and you can have a fruit juice, avena which I would describe as a watery oatmeal based drink served hot (if you get there early) with lots of infusions, sandwiches with many traditional fillings, chicharones (deep fried pork pieces), ceviche and so much more. Noon time brings out the the fried liver, chicken and rice, the many caldos (soups) and again the list is a long one. Evening time is my favourite part of the day because this is normally when my fvourite, anticuchos can be found. caldos, hot emolientes (barley based drink) to chase away the cold and again I’m scratching the surface here when I say there is so much more.
I will try and explain the origins of one of Peru’s most loved and popular fare, the anticucho.
Anticuchos
The Incas used to eat meat cooked over an open flame the protein used being the llama. The Spanish Conquistadores brought with them their food culture which included skewered meat cooked the same way as the Incas did theirs.
Traditionally heart is used when making anticuchos with a special marinate, normally with vinegar and a local hot pepper. There are different recipes depending on where you live. If you ask Mr Google you will find hundreds of recipes with slight variations and mostly claiming theirs as the ‘best’.
The Conquistadores weren’t too keen on eating offal and this was used to feed their slaves which they had brought with them when colonizing Peru and so the slaves with their limited resources had to use heart instead of meat and so The Anticucho as we know it was born. There are many variations using chicken hearts, chicken meat, beef etc, but the traditional Peruvian way is using cows heart.
Normally served with sliced potatoes and choclo (corn on the cob) when freshly cooked is a delight for all bar the vegetarians amongst us and those of us who are not squeamish about digesting offal.
You can include a recipe, use my photos or none, your photos you’re the Editor. This is my first draft and so feedback would be good as in can you use this. Should I elaborate more or short and sweet as we have it here? I was thinking of every month writing an article, for example Turron could be the next one with origins etc etc etc etc … What do you think????
by Will Handley
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