Lima, Peru

(A warm-up to the actual story.)

A tribute to Lima's culinary culture

With a few days of frustration against a choppy sea, with some extra patience needed to slowly push against the Humboldt current and with a tiny knot in my heart hoping that all the thousands of moving parts, belts, jets, springs and other mysterious bits and pieces working together inside that lump of metal labeled "Yanmar" would keep doing just that - working together, spinning the prop and drinking the diesel, we finally arrived to Peru. Phooaaa, that was a long sentence.

The passage - at least now that I look back and think about it - was uneventful. I'd have to ask Annina to read me her diary for the events, the slight changes of wind, the time each day that the sun burnt off the thin overcast skies and the day that I baked a loaf of bread or the number of dolphins that we didn't manage to get a decent photo of. The temperature cooled down as soon as we were off-shore, and continued to do so as we entered the cooler waters of Peru. We pulled out the duvet (quilt, duna... whaddya call it again?) and took great pleasure crawling under it, one at the time, off watch. Much to our delight, the Peruvian coast was free of fog and the seas were smooth.

A seal jumps out at Isla Palominos, near Lima.

We had been told about a requirement of reporting our position twice a day while in Peruvian waters. I could not tune the old Kenwood into the required 8 Meg frequency. Thanks to the functioning 10 Meg with the ailing antenna tuner, I was able to keep emails going all around, sending the authorities email, reporting our position and writing some random pleasantries. I also contacted an agent in Lima. "We are very happy to serve you", said Jose Louis in his reply, quoting US 400 plus another US 100 for authorities as the price for our check-in. "No thanks", I replied and got ready to sail directly to Easter Island instead. Blood suckers, bastards! Jose Louis was a humble man and duly replied with another email: "How much would you be willing to pay?". With cautiously low expectations, our arrival to the land of Peru, the origin of the humble potato, was an earthly and pleasant surprise. So let's go to the point. The point of arrival.

Jaime Ackermann, the manager of Yacht Club Peruano came alongside with the club's water taxi and gave us a warm welcome. His english was plentiful but a little difficult to understand, the most important thing being his genuinely helpful attitude, as if we were somehow important people. He guided us to a mooring and nodded the waiting water taxi to offload the authorities onboard. Soft drinks and beers (Yeah, the agent happily drank a cold beer at 10 AM, my kinda guy...) After some haggling, we agreed on a fee of US 200 dollars, including the fees to the authorities, including check-out as well. The deal was reasonable, as the Peruvian bureaucracy is complicated, not entirely free of corruption and very time consuming. (Authorities do not visit the yachts, unless the agent is involved.)

It's not that we had our diaries full of meetings and obligations, leaving us no time to do the rounds, but you know... we are very busy. Busy with Gin Tonics at least, as soon as we were cleared in and left to celebrate Aliisa's arrival to her country number 48. (Including overseas territories). And now to the food:

The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine

- Lin Yutang -

We will start the story of our visit to Lima with some nibblies. Peru's gift to those who visit. To me, at least, one of the best kept secrets of the world, a food culture that makes some of the Italian, French and Chinese kitchen look like an airline lunch on a domestic flight. The pictured meals were well priced, no more than 10 bucks US in the finest of places and considerably less in street kitchens. We had the pleasure of sampling the Peruvian cousine in both a private home, a pub, a street stall as well as many restaurants - some more upmarket than others.

Peruvian cousine draws from different cultures, combining both Chinese and Japanese influence, European and Spanish inspiration as well as traditional indingenous dishes. In addition, it exploits the vast differences Peru's climates which provides a wide range of top quality ingredients. Tropical fruit, vegetables of all kind, sea food from the nutrient-rich Pacific coast (cooled by the Humboldt current), the chicken, the pork, the beef, the berries, the grains, the spices... you name it, they've got it fresh in Lima, the culinary capital of South America.

Mariscos Especial - all seafood, for a hungry person.

Pisco Sour - the national drink. Pisco is a type of "brandy", though it is not aged in oak barrels but is always clear, pure distillate from carefully selected grapes. My favourite - the softest - is the one made from Moscatel grapes. Mix with lime juice, sugar, crushed ice, egg white and a dash of bitters. Foam up in a blender.

Aji de Mariscos

Maracuya Sour

Ceviche Mixto - the dish all Peruvians are proud of. Though some version of it is served throughout Latin America, this dish is truly Peruvian. I'm not too big a fan of raw seafood but trusting Annina's reviews and having tasted Ceviche in Panama, Costa Rica and Ecuador, the Peruvian is in a class of its own.

By the way, the red bit on the top - cleverly in disguise under some herbs - is NOT a tomato slice, as Annina found out. Having thrown the whole thing in her mouth at once, it took some time for her to recover, stop crying and shaking. The restaurant staff laughed and said: "That's really not meant to be eaten". Mexico and Thailand may be more famous for hot dishes but the innocent looking Peruvian peppers can pack a punch too. Be warned.

Choritos. A popular entree. Again, not my cup of tea so far. Yep, so far. I have never liked mussels until I came to Lima. For a sea food buff, Lima is heaven.

The Peruvian's love for tickling the taste buds was not limited to the dining table. Bakeries poured out crispy bread and sweet pastries of all kind, street vendors selling "Picarones" - a donut-style deep-fried dough made of sweet potatoe, pumpkin, sweet flavours and... not sure. I'm not online when writing this, so I'm unable to Google "picarones, peru, recipe". You go right ahead.

Anticuchos. Cow's or Bull's heart. Popular in street kitchens but also often in the menu of finer restaurants.

Fish'n'chips, wihout chips.

Causa. Inside varies, ouside is usually colourful and decorated. Made of mash potato! Yum. The red bit on the plate is actually a slice of tomato and safe to eat.

Lomo Orloff. Despite sea food being so popular, all the meat we had was fantastic - better than in the restaurants we tried in Buenos Aires. (Lomo is Spanish for "tenderloin", I think)

Calamares a la Chalaca - octopus Callao style

It was popular to make these little mouthfuls of sea food, mussels or octopus with red onion, fresh coriander, chilli, corn, tomato and lime juice.

Lomo Saltado - Peruvian, they claimed. A stir-fry that always gets served with french fries*. I found that a little odd, actually. Peruvian chefs have no lack of imagination and there are about 500 different varieties of spuds available here - in the country that the potato originates from. The humble fries seemed like lack of ambition.

*PS. Why are they called French fries? (Yeah, some frog-hating yanks call them "freedom fries"). In Australia they're just chips. But "French?" If we were to attribute a country as their origin, they should be called "Belgian potatos", for it was in Belgium that someone first discovered boiling spuds in fat.

Causa de Limena. Causa Lima style. Filled with Chicken. As nice to the eye than it is to the mouth.

Coffee and Pisco for desert. Watch out for the Pisco. It is typically poured generously and though it will be easy to blame the mussels or the sea sickness between the vomits next day, the reason may not always be as clear as the evil spirit from the bottle. I know. I've been there. Twice. (It MUST have been the mussels!)

That should be enough food and drink for one web page. Lima rocks and yes, we'll go there again, for sure. Maybe next time we manage to do some Inka stuff too. So what did we do? That's Lima Pt 2.