Perú 2010: Food = Identity? English Version

When I was first researching places to study abroad, the first thing I read about Peru was the quality of its food. Indeed, in my Lonely Planet travel guide to Peru, one of the first things it mentions is how Peru “is a country devoted to the art of keeping the human palate entertained.” At first, I didn’t really consider this to be anything really significant; many times resources like these tend to glorify the gastronomical aspects of certain countries in order to make the country seem like a place one would want to visit. However, once I came to Peru, I certainly thought that the food was indeed amazing; every time I went out to dinner or opened my lonchera at school, I couldn’t help but have my “palate entertained.” Yet having lived here for more than two months, I have come to the conclusion that this culinary trend is something more than a characteristic: there is a cultural significance to Peru’s gastronomical superiority.

One of the first impressions I made about Peruvians were that they are a people that seem to be very proud of their food. This is a country where people take minimum two hour lunches, where families actually eat together, where preservatives are blasphemy. If you want juice, you actually get juice: straight from the orange itself. If you’re in the mood for some chicken, you can practically pick the one you want… when it’s alive. Whenever a local found out that I was a foreigner (not too difficult considering my physical stature compared to an average Peruvian…), the first thing they ask me was if I liked the food here. Not only that, if you take a stroll around Lima today, probably at least two-thirds of the small businesses you will find will have something to do with food: restaurants, convenience stores selling sundries, fruit and vegetable stands, or food markets displaying the freshest produce from around the country. This may not seem too strange if you consider that most cities have a wide range of food to choose from; what sets Peru apart is the value they place on it, and because of this, the surprising amount of issues it becomes a part of.

Peru is widely considered to be a nation of mixed races, but that does not mean all cultures are immediately accepted into the Peruvian mainstream. During the period of Chinese immigration, for example, racism was rampant throughout the country and especially in the main cities like Lima. As with “normal” cases of racism, citizens didn’t want the Chinese culture to “contaminate” the “authentic” Peruvian one; they were afraid the sheer number of Chinese immigrants would change what it meant to be a Peruvian. However, what is different about the Peruvian case is the fact that one of the main concerns during this time period was culinary. Peruvians were terrified that the dispersing of Chinese food, especially in population hotspots like Lima, would consequently lead to the changing of the national psyche. This fear was not sated when a group of Chinese migrants opened the supermarket Wongs in 1942 in the district of San Isidro, thus proving that these immigrants meant business when it came to providing food to the city. Thus, Peruvians considered food to be synonymous with identity, a concept that has not been lost to this day. And as for the racism against the Chinese, well… let’s just say there is no “Chinese food” in Lima. In its place there is “chifa”, a mixture of both Peruvian and Chinese styles. Hopefully this cultural blending can continue in this country for years to come.