Destinations Editor Eric Moya was in Peru last week for a culinary-themed trip hosted by the JW Marriott El Convento Cusco. His first dispatch follows.
After four days in Peru, I was in the mood for Chinese.
Not that I'd grown tired of local cuisine. Rather, I was interested in exploring one particular facet of it: the influence of Chinese immigrants on dishes that today are Peruvian staples, such as lomo saltado (beef tenderloin and vegetables stir-fried in soy sauce) .
Peru's ties to Chinese cooking traditions are as long-lived as ours in the U.S. The country saw a huge influx of Chinese immigrants in the mid-19th century, when Peru's abolishment of slavery in 1854 opened up jobs in farming and railroad construction.
With this new pool of workers arose restaurants offering a taste of home, albeit with recipes adapted to use local resources, and these chifa restaurants remain ubiquitous on Peru's dining scene.
But even apart from chifas, dishes such as lomo saltado and arroz chaufa (fried rice, often incorporating corn and other local ingredients) are staples at many Peruvian restaurants, sharing menu space with ceviche, locro (a thick stew) and other regional specialties.
A Peruvian cooking seminar at the JW Marriott El Convento Cusco, led by executive sous chef Rely Alencastre Lazo, further emphasized the Peruvian-Chinese connection: He prepared our lomo saltado in woks.
My final night in Cusco, a meal at Chicha brought together this Peruvian-Chinese fusion within one bowl: Andean chaufa (with Peruvian staple crop quinoa standing in for rice) topped with quail eggs and roasted guinea pig.