On 4/17/2018 4:12 PM, Victor Sack wrote:
> The Humble Potato Is Exalted in the Mountains of Peru
> By MADHUR JAFFREY
> The New York Times
>
> Chahuaytire, Peru -- Gumercinda Quispe is a descendant of Peruvian Incas
> and here, high in the Andes, more than 12,500 feet above sea level, she
> has prepared a nourishing, spicy potato soup, quacha chuño.
>
Thank you, Victor, for posting something other than the automated
Rec.Food.Cooking FAQ links.

Jill <---loves potatoes, never been to Peru

> She has made it with both fresh potatoes and chuño, the dried, hard
> white potatoes that are still prepared just a stone's throw away. The
> ancient preservation process includes soaking them in an icy stream,
> stomping them by foot to remove the skins and drying them in the sun.
>
> I love potatoes. They are not a staple in my native India, as they are
> in Peru. In India, they are a beloved, cheap treat. Cooked in thousands
> of different ways, almost always creatively burnished with selective
> spoonfuls from a treasure chest of seasonings and spices, potatoes are
> served in every town and village at mealtimes and as chutney-augmented
> street snacks. I wanted to learn more about potatoes here in the land of
> their birth.
>
> In the little mountain village of Chahuaytire near the town of Pisac in
> southern Peru, Ms. Quispe and I sat down at a table close to the warm,
> sooty hearth in the rustic restaurant where she works. The sun was
> shining bright outside, and the sky was a clear, cold blue.
>
> "Put some sauce in the soup and drink from the bowl," she said,
> motioning to the verdant uchucuta sauce she had prepared. "Uchu" means
> "chiles" in the Quechua language of the Incas, and "cuta" means
> "ground."
>
> The sauce, a mouth-smackingly good fresh chutney to this Indian, is not
> just hot from one of the dozens of chiles native to Peru, but sour from
> limes that came with the Spaniards, and deeply aromatic from huacatay
> and other wild herbs that grow in the mountains.
>
> There was a time when Incas used only wild Peruvian herbs, but today,
> after centuries of Spanish influence, they go to the market and buy an
> asnapa, a bouquet of herbs that could include the New World huacatay but
> also gifts from the Old World like cilantro, mint, oregano, parsley and
> tarragon.
>
> Potatoes come in every texture and color. You can see them in the
> markets: reds, blues, purples, yellows and pinks, sometimes ringed with
> two colors when sliced open. The texture of some varieties can be
> changed by putting them out in the sun for a few days before cooking
> them. This turns them softer and silkier.
>
> Some are shaped like a puma's paw; others, an alpaca's nose or a cat's
> claw. Native to the Andes in Peru and northwest Bolivia, potatoes were
> domesticated more than 10,000 years ago. And yet new varieties are being
> discovered all the time.
>
> Potato banks -- like the one in the Pisac region of the Andes that
> stores seeds in a climate-controlled vault for 1,300 varieties of
> potatoes -- are always searching for new varieties, as are dozens of
> creative Peruvian chefs on the lookout for wild and unusual indigenous
> ingredients.
>
> Freeze-drying the potato for chuño was just one method used to increase
> its life after harvest. Running or walking was the chief mode of
> transportation for most ancient Andean peoples (certainly the Incas);
> they could easily carry dried potatoes with them and make a quick stew
> with local herbs, chiles and water from a mountain stream whenever
> hunger called.
>
> Dried potatoes in Peru come in many forms. They can look like pebbles --
> hard and smooth, in white or purple. They can look like large gravel,
> with different colors. But they can also be soft, tasting and smelling
> as funky as fermented bean curd or ripe cheese. Each has a different
> flavor and texture.
>
> The Inca guide who traveled with me through the Andes still hikes
> carrying dried potatoes (sometimes in a powdered form) and llama jerky,
> essential ingredients for a soup he considers a part of his cultural
> inheritance.
>
> Potatoes were given superb treatment wherever I traveled. At the Sumaq
> Hotel in the town of Aguas Calientes, there was pastel de papa, a
> meltingly soft potato cake with layers of thin-sliced potato, bacon and
> cheese.
>
> Papa a la Huancaina, which originated in the town of Huancayo in the
> central highlands and is considered by many to be Peru's national dish,
> was everywhere, including the cafeteria at Machu Picchu. Boiled, sliced
> potatoes and boiled, sliced eggs were placed on top of lettuce leaves
> with some olives strewn about, and dressed with a Huancaina sauce that
> brought the dish together. Its main ingredient was the long, aromatic
> orange chile, aji amarillo.
>
> Perhaps my favorite dish of all was causa. Like lasagnas, causas are
> layered terrinelike dishes, generally served cold, though room
> temperature can also work for some of them.
>
> Instead of pasta, potatoes -- mashed and seasoned with an aji amarillo
> paste, lime juice, olive oil and salt -- are the most important element
> in a causa. They can provide one, two or even three of the layers in the
> dish. The other in-between layers could include seafood salad, vegetable
> salad, chicken salad or, as in the Amazon region, pork-and-onion salad
> made with the addition of the fiery, round charapita chile.
>
> Whichever way it is served, causa is always soothing -- and refreshingly
> delicious. For the hotter regions of Peru, it is just as cooling and
> satisfying as that warming soup is in the Andean mountains.
>