They love potatoes here OR Nate eats his way through Peru OR Food in Peru

The Best: Three-way tie!!
Chicken and french fries: Deliciously greasy, deliciously cheap- what could be better?? And there is at least one on every street. When you think of Peruvian food, you probably don’t think of french fries, but they are seriously everywhere down here. Mostly because Peruvian’s love them some potatoes. And when you combine them with delicious chicken, salad, ice cream, and a drink for 6 soles, then you have the best day of Katy’s life.

Your adorable and so delicious

Trucha (trout): We ate some incredible trout on this trip. We went to a hatchery on the valley tour where we had amazing trout that was caught fresh and then fried with garlic. It was seriously fantastic. Cusco also had delicious fried trout at small sketchy restaurant, and some really greasy bad fried trout at a nice restaurant. So we have learned to eat at the sketchy restaurants, they are usually better, and always cheaper.

Steaks at the Taxi Driver Fundraiser: Our inner carnivores really came out on this trip, because just like us, Peru doesn’t believe in vegetarians. We pretty much ate meat constantly (and rice and potatoes), and it was amazing (except for the lizard meat Nate ate from a street vendor…that didn’t go so well). Anyway, in Huancayo we helped at a fundraiser, and there we discovered a booth selling massive steaks. And because Peruvians don’t believe in napkins or silverware, we ate it caveman style, which made it even better.

The Worst:
Yellow potato casserole with citrus/vinegar vegetable filling. And it was cold. On purpose. And basically….it was indescribably bad. We have worked very hard to be open to new food experiences during our time here, but this was just too much. Blechh. So we went to Pizza Hut.

The Interesting
Cuy: Otherwise known as those cute lil guinea pigs that many American children keep as pets. Well kids, they are also a Peruvian delicacy. We tried Cuy Colorado, which is one of the most popular ways to prepare cuy. It’s basically cuy with a kind of sweet, nutty barbecue sauce. And it was….interesting. The flavor was decent, but as you might expect, they aren’t the meatiest little guys, so it was just kind of difficult to eat. But, now we can say we tried cuy!

Papas a la Huancaina: This is the most popular dish in Huancayo! As I said before, Peruvian’s love their potatoes. Especially potatoes covered in salsa de Huancaina, a sauce made from eggs, cheese, pepper, and a whole bunch of other stuff. And again, interesting. This is what we made for the fundraiser, which involved peeling hundreds and hundreds of potatoes with our fingers….so maybe that’s why we don’t like this dish very much.

During our time in Peru we have also tried lots of authentic Peruvian meals home-cooked by our host family (some good, some not so good- see yellow potato casserole), Panchamanca (delicious meat slow cooked underground for hours),

Peruvian Chinese food (good),

Peruvian Italian food (baaaad),

salchipapas (bright pink hot dogs and french fries), and way more Pizza Hut and ice cream than we ever would eat in the States. Whew, I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry now. Chicken and chips for 6 soles? Yes please.