Guinea Pigs, traditionally called Cuy in Peru, are a traditional food.

Yes, people do eat guinea pigs in Peru. For thousands of years people have eaten Cuy as they are called in the native language.

Cuy come from the Andes, the moutains that run along the west of South America. They have been domesticated since at least 5000BC.

]]> http://www.anaperuana.com/2010/06/27/do-people-eat-guinea-pigs-in-peru/feed/ 0 http://www.anaperuana.com/2010/02/12/bullfighting-in-arequipa-peru/ http://www.anaperuana.com/2010/02/12/bullfighting-in-arequipa-peru/#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:45:37 +0000 Ana http://www.anaperuana.com/?p=1892

Statue of bulls fighting in Cayma district of Arequipa in Peru

Being an ex Spanish colony means that Peru has many traditions that come from Spanish culture. Bullfighting is one of them, but in Arequipa it is with a difference.

In Arequipa the tradition of bullfighting has been adapted so that two bulls fight each other, so it is more like bull wrestling.

Arequipa is surrounded by rich farmland and this became a popular event for country people and those from the town too.

The fight has many people placing bets on the outcome and cheering their favourite. It is popular enough to be broadcast on local TV channels.

The rules are simple the bull that runs away loses. The bulls lock horns, snort and push as hard as they can, twisting and trying to push the other aside. Eventually one will either become tired or give up and the other will chase him away.

The bulls are treated with care because they are not killed like in Spanish bullfights – instead they win trophies and become champions and are treated well by their owners. If the fight becomes too aggressive the bulls are separated before they really hurt each other. If the bull that wins keeps trying to attack the bull that is running away they have to lasso him and pull him away to end the fight.

The bulls can be very aggressive animals, a fighting bull with many trophies decided one day to attack a horse on my uncle’s farm. When he tried to stop the bull it attacked him too! The horse sadly did not survive. This is normal behaviour for bulls, it is in their nature to fight…  you can see sometimes in a field they will just decide they don’t like the look of another bull and start a fight – these bulls can be selected for fights because they are naturally aggressive.

But also sometimes, the bulls when they come together just decide not to fight – and nothing that the farmers can do will make them fight! I have sometimes seen this on television.

In Arequipa, there are sometimes fights with matadors, but the bulls are not killed.

Here is a bullfight in Arequipa:

And another – no so good quality:

Here is a fight from Urabamba, Peru:

Muchos apellidos ingleses tien significados que vienen de los trabajos que la gente .

Harry Potter, Margaret Thatcher, Charlie Chaplin y Anna Nicole Smith tienen todos algo en comun-sus apellidos vienen de oficios que sus antepasados solian hacer.

Muchos apellidos ingleses tien significados que vienen de los trabajos que la gente. Usualmente muchos negocios en una ciudad o pueblo pertenecian a una familia, los hijos aprendian el negocio de los padres. Muchos siglos atras en pequenos pueblos ingleses la gente raramente viajaba a otros lugares y las familias vivian en el mismo lugar por generaciones. Cada pueblo o ciudad tenia las mismas necesidades basicas y so oficio se convertia en su apellido.

• ‘Butcher’ (Carnicero).
• ‘Carpenter’(Carpintero) .
• ‘Cartwright’ (El que construia carretas).
• ‘Carter’(Carretero, transportaba productos en su carreta)
• ‘Farmer’ (Granjero, usualmente solo trabajaba para el dueno de la tierra)
• ‘Kellogg’ (El que beneficiaba cerdos) persons who killed pigs ‘hogs’ – el fundador de la compania kellogg’s era vegetariano.
• Baker (Panadero)
• ‘Taylor’ (Sastre). En ingles moderno Tailor.
• ‘Thatcher’ – (El que hacia techos de paja).
• ‘Hunter’(Cazador) .
• ‘Fuller’(El que removia la grasa de la lana remojandola en orina, la gente solia vender su orina)
• ‘Shepherd’ (Pastor, guiaba las ovejas a un lugar seguro)
• ‘Smith’ (Herrero), es el apellido ingles mas comun en el mundo porque cada ciudad o pueblo tenia un herrero (Blacksmith) que hacia herraduras, espadas, hachas, clavos, serruchos, herramientas para cocineros y panaderos, llantas para las carretas, etc.)

En ciudades mas grandes la gente tenia otros oficios:

• ‘Brewer’ (el que hace la cerveza)
• ‘Cooper’ (el que hacia barriles para la cerveza)
• ‘Chaplin’ ( el que aconsejaba sobre religion en escuelas, prisiones, hospitales y otras instituciones)
• ‘Clark’ Originalmente clerigo
• ‘Potter’ (Alfarero).
• ‘Tanner’ (Curtidor de pieles).
• ‘Turner’ (Tornero, el que usando una maquina hace diferentes objetos como manubrios,husos, etc.)
• ‘Mason’ (Albanil)

Estos son algunos ejemplos de apellidos en el Reino Unido que provienen de diferentes oficios. Mucha gente tomo los apellidos del lugar donde nacieron, especialmente si se mudaban a otra ciudad. Tambein los apellidos proviene  de cosas simples como el color de cabello. la forma como caminaban o si eran muy altos, etc. Por ejemplo el Primer Minitro Britanico Gordon Brown probalemente tuvo algun antepasado de cabello oscuro de la palabra inglesa antigua ’brun’.

Actualmente en Inglaterra existen muchos apellidos de muchas partes del mundo, apellidos como Smith, Turner o Fisher sige  siendo muy comunes pero es tambien comun escuchar apellidos de origen hindo como Singh o Patel o apellidos chinos como Zhang y ultimamente apellidos polacos como Kowalski.

Traditional Mazamorra Morada Recipe

Ingredients

Purple Corn
Pineaple skin
Apple
Cinamon powder and sticks
Corn starch or sweet potato starch
prunes
dried apricots
Sugar

Boil the purple corn in water for about 15 minutes with the pineaple skin and some cinamon sticks, sieve, then pour the liquid in a pan, add dried fruits, apple in cubes and the starch and cook for a few more minutes stirring with a wooden spoon. Leave to cool down and serve with cinamon powder on top.

Mazamorra morada is traditionally eaten with rice pudding in Easter – or any time of the year:)

Essentially the ingredients are purple corn, apple, pineapple and cinnamon.

Chicha Morada also sold ready to drink in bottles In supermarkets there are packets of powder you can mix with water to make Chicha Morada like the famous Negrita brand but these usually use artificial colours and flavours. If you want to make Chicha Morada the traditional way this is the recipe:

Purple corn
Cinnamon
Pineaple skin
Apple
Sugar
Lemon juice

Boil the purple corn with the pineaple skin or any fruit that you like that is gonna give the chicha a strong flavour for about 15 minutes.Sieve the chicha. Leave it to cool down, when the chicha is cold add sugar or sweetener and lemon juice, you could add apple in little cubes as well.

In fact Chicha Morada is often still available in cinemas where you can have it instead of coca-cola, 7-up, etc.

Some Adverts for Chicha:

Holy Week is one of the religious dates venerated in Peru with great devotion there are processions, carpets of flowers, the aroma of incense, sorrowful hearts, slow pacing, grief-stricken by the death of Jesus, temples with candles welcoming devotees begging pardon for their sins. Just a few of the demonstrations of their faith.

Food is an important part of Easter, especially on Friday where eating meat is not allowed but people instead eat fish in a variety of preparations, my favourite used to be the typical Chupe de Viernes (Friday Soup) made with Crayfish, cheese, milk, potatoes and vegetables. People eat as well variety of desserts like Mazamorra Morada (Jelly made from starch and fruits and colured with purple corn) or rice pudding. On sunday it’s typical to eat in Arequipa the “caldo blanco or seven meats soup” made with beef, lamb, chicken, pork, charqui (dried meat), goats and potatoes and vegetables to celebrate that Jesus is alive again.

Very early on sunday morning the morning in my local square and in many parts across my city a puppet of Judas is burnt and he always makes a will that is usually very funny.

Tuna, a type of cactus, growing in fields in Arequipa Province, Peru

For centuries Cochineal has been prized for its colour for dying fabric and now is commonly used in food products as a ‘natural’ food colouring. You can find it in ingredients lists, called carmine, or E120. Here are some photos from the production…

The white patches are colonies of cochineal insects

The insects are scraped off the cactus and boiled to kill them. Then they are dried….

Cochineal traders line the roads, who buy and sell 'fresh and dry' cochineal

There is a nice by-product of this industry – the Tuna fruit. These ra the fruit of the cactus and are sold in the shops but only after the spikes have been removed. It has soft, juicy red flesh and is popular as a juice. It has a delicious flavour, which you might think of as like watermelon but stronger. So if someone offers you some ‘Tuna Juice’ don’t worry its not fish, its a lovely drink

Irrigations outside Arequipa are popular places to find tuna fields, there are  a lot of cochineal traders and I imagine that the prize that they is not bad.

Cusquena is the most famous Peruvian beer.

I was very surprised last year to find Cusquena in my local Asda supermaket. This is the most famous beer in Peru and gets its name from the city of Cusco, which used to be the captial of the Inca Empire. All tourists that want to visit Machu Picchu travel through Cusco where they will definitely see this beer, but you can buy Cusquena all over Peru.

It is considered a very high quality beer because it uses pure barley, where other beers use barley and corn.

Arequipena - the beer from my home city welcomes you on the road to Arequipa

Franca a Peruvian owned beer (this one is in Mancora!)

After being abroad for a while in a visit to Peru I saw that there are many more brands, when I left Peru Brahma (the famous brazilian beer) just started to be popular and after a couple of years being abroad when I came back I saw another new brands like Barena or Franca.

In Peru there isn’t the variety of british and imported beers that you can find in the UK, but definitely the range of peruvian beers is wider now.

Dancers performing the Marinera Arequipena

There are many typical dances from Peru and they have indigenous, hispanic and african origin. Typical dances are danced in school, Independence day and in many another occasions.

One of the most typical one is the “Marinera” that is very popular in the North of Peru, the woman wears a long dress that I imagine has its origins on spanish flamenco dresses and she dances without shoes, she wears traditional hand made earrings. the man wears a suit and a kind of big belt in his waist. The marinera represents flirting between them and it’s a bit difficult to dance, kids learn to dance from a very early age.

Marinera Arequipena - many areas of Peru have a variation of the Marinera

There are another dances very simialr to marinera like Tondero or another kind of Marineras from another parts from Peru.

The Huayno is a dance from the mountains from Peru, the origin of this dance is from Inca and Pre Inca time and the costumes are very colourful.

The Huaylash is another dance from the mountains from Peru, the costumes are very colourful, it looks a bit like a funny tap dance and it’s a representation of agricultural tasks.

The Diablada is a typical dance from the Southern Part of Peru, it started like a representation of the evil and the good spirits during colonial times and then developed into a colourful dance with costumes with evil heads.

There are many Afro Peruvian dances, called “negroides” , that began in Colonial times when the Spanish brought slaves to South America. A wooden box with deep sound when hit is the rhythm instrument for this type of music with guitars and another instruments for melody.

There are many more dances like some from the Amazon Region of Peru and I could say that every city has a different dance. Dances are taught everywhere and they are still very alive in the culture of Peru.

A freshly made cake with apricots and cream in Peru

There are very posh places full of people having a nice chat and enjoying a cake, probably this tradition comes from Italy or France.

Peruvian people like light and spongy cakes with fresh fruit and with fillings (my favourite is manjar that is made by simmering milk and sugar until you get a product similar to caramel) , cakes are made from layers and are very nicely decorated with fresh fruit, chocolate coverture, jelly and many more things. Many cakes look like a work of art.

A selection of fresh cakes on offer in a Metro supermarket in Lima.

Peruvian people have a “sweet tooth” but cakes are not made as sweet as in the UK and you can taste the rich flavour of the fruits and another ingredients, not just the sweetness of sugar.

People can buy cakes in supermarket as well like the ones in the picture that look very impressive compared to UK cakes but you can find more sophisticated ones in bakeries and cafes.

Wedding cakes are often very large and elaborate as well and they have some ‘surprises’ inside to play games with in the wedding party!