Photo Credit: This picture taken on August 27, 2016 shows visitors enjoying the Llamas on the ruins of Machu Picchu, which stands 2,430 meters above sea-level. Embedded within a dramatic landscape at the meeting point between the Peruvian Andes and the Amazon Basin, the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu is among the greatest artistic, architectural and land use achievements anywhere and the most significant tangible legacy of the Inca civilization. / AFP / GOH CHAI HIN (Photo credit should read GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty Images)
The Soul Food of Black Peru
Millions of tourists travel to Peru every year to eat–drawing people to its creole culinary that has a 500-year fusion of Andean, Spanish, African, Chinese, and Japanese cuisines.
But some of Peru’s most iconic street foods, including the grilled beef-heart known as “anticuchos”, marinated in a vinegar sauce and the deep-fried doughnut-like picarones made from spiced sweet potatoes, come from a legacy of slavery.
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“Peru’s creole cuisine flourished in the creative hands of Afro-descendant women whose cooking was both sustenance and an act of resistance,” Historian and educator Rolando Quiróz, told Taste Cooking. “It was Afro-Peruvian women street vendors that made creole food popular,” said Quiróz. “At first, their customers were working-class mestizos and Black Limeños (people from Lima), but over time, creole food’s flavors won over the Spanish upper class.”
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If you’re looking for Black soul food places to explore, then you should put La Anticuchería on your list, located in the Miraflores neighborhood in Lima, Perú.
Another location to try is Mamaine Restaurant in Cacaerio Guayabo. The people of Guayabo take pride in their African heritage, music, and their cuisine. Popular dishes to try are the tamal and carapulcra.
