Peru, charming biodiversity

An invitation, a yes and here I am now in Lima, in front of the Pacific Ocean, after a trip via Amsterdam, on Monday 25th, that looked endless because I hadn’t paid too much attention to the details, except for the time of departure and arrival. The invitation came from the Basque Culinary Center in San Sebastian which, together with the World Tourism Organization and with PromPerù, organised the Global Forum on Gastronomy Tourism, three days of works from the 27th till the 29th April. I’m curious to find out how many other Italians will be there. It looks like none will be on stage, and at least one will be in the audience.

Together with me, I have the Rough Guide recently published in Italy by Feltrinelli and Manuale di sopravvivenza amazzonica per signorine di città written Sara Porro, and just out for EDT. I’m not a miss but you just need to adapt thoughts and recommendations to your own case. Apart from the excuse given me by the Basques, I owe much of my presence to the passion Amora Carbajal puts in her work. In Milan she guides the Peruvian Trade Office, the Mincetur, and I owe her the pleasure of having as my guide her cousin Gonzalo, another XXL-size enthusiast. We click.

He, and he’s not the only one as I’ll soon learn, has a very specific curiosity he wants to satisfy: my expectations from this trip. I told him «I want to understand how come until some fifteen years ago you heard nothing of Peruvian cuisine, chefs and products and now it’s all everyone speaks about». And the answer is in the huge cross, which recalls the crucifixion of Jesus, raised on the southern edge of the capital. It’s dedicated to the visit paid by Pope Wojtyla in early 1985 and it’s built with the metal recovered by the electricity trellis that the terrorists of Sendero Luminoso blew up over many years.

The arrest of their leader Abimael Guzman in September 1992 put an end to terrorism. The drug trade plague remains, but Peru is doubtlessly different today, it attracts foreign investment and opens up to the world with pride. And his great chefs, such as Gaston Acurio and Virgilio Martinez, Mitsuharu Tsumura and Hector Solis, are its admired and envied ambassadors. To sum it up: Peruvians had other problems to take care of instead of thinking about how spicy can ceviche be before an American or European will feel their mouth burst into flame.

I instead was wondering about something else: when we speak of Peruvian traditions, to which people and eras do we refer to? Needless to say, the remains that leave us speechless come from the Incas, Machu Picchu to name the most famous. Yet the Peru we meet today is also the result of the Spanish conquest run by Francisco Pizarro, in the 1530s. It’s a history that goes a long way back, even the independence from Spain arrived in 1821. Yet it is nonetheless impressive to find out that what we now call the collateral damages of the invaders, such as unknown diseases like smallpox and measles, caused the death of 27 million people out of a population of 32 between 1520 and 1548. It’s as if from today till 2044 Italy would move from 60 to some 10 million inhabitants.

As Italians, we must be eternally grateful to Peru, this is where tomato comes from. Without it, imagining our contemporary cuisine would be impossible. And if one wonders why such general interest for this nation and its biodiversity, one example is enough: 2,700 types of potatoes and 54 of tomatoes. In some ten years’ time, experts trust they’ll be able to identify 5K different potatoes and in some 30 years’ time they’ll be able to prove that potatoes and tomatoes come from the same family, they’re cousins. It is so rich of fruit and vegetables that much of what is displayed in the market is almost nameless and if you ask what it is, the answer is always the same: «It comes from the jungle». I’ll enjoy this trip.

1. To be continued