The biggest Food Festival in Peru: Mistura! Come and delight yourself!‏

This days in Lima is all about Mistura! You take a bus, go to the movies, at lunch at work, everybody is asking “did you go already?, got some tickets? What day are you planning to go?”, because is the event nobody wants to miss, is the opportunity to try great dishes from all across Peru, from a great variey of restaurants and street restaurant and at very affordable prices!

The festival started first on 2009 with the Peruvian Association of Gastronomy promoting the idea of reuniting the main players in Peruvian Gastronomy and make a menu of activities that promote not only the Peruvian Gastronomy but the cultural identity of the Peruvians.

The festival also wants to celebrate that in Peru, through the centuries, the food has been associated with festivities and joy, using techniques that had been transmitted from generation to generation. Also, the food has also been very much hand in hand with the music and social fraternization among different kind of peoples………….and this is the spirit that prevails in Mistura.

The festival reunites all the actors in the gastronomic chain in Peru: small farmers, Pisco producers, cookers, chefs, bakers, confectioneries, restaurants, street restaurants, food institutes, food processing companies and more!

In Mistura you can find all kinds of foods, from Ceviche to “Picarones” which are a special Peruvian dessert almost in the form of a donut but with honey all over…..just delicious! You can also find the most exotic juices made with fruits from the highlands and fruits that are only found in Peru, like the Lucuma.

You can also find some food stands with some Tamales, and “Humitas” which is very much like a tamale but in a sweet flavor, or you can also find the popular “Anticuchos”, which are pieces of meat from the heart of the cow and are cooked on a grill, put together on a stick…………

You can also find Food that is typical from the jungle part of Peru, like “Cecina” wich is a dried meat that is regularly served with “Tacacho”, which is kind of mashed bananas cooked with some salt and species and us just delicious!

The best about the food stands, compared to the restaurants that you can also find at Mistura, is that you can  see the whole preparation of your dish!!!

But it is not all about just eating, you can also go to some of the conferences that are offered by the greatest and most recognized internationally, and they talk about the techniques for the preparation of some dishes, about the different ways a special dish has been reinvented and presented in different restaurants and many more interesting topics!

So if you are planning on Visiting Peru next year around this time, I strongly recommend you to purchase your tickets for Mistura in Advance, the cost is only S/.15 (which is about $6) and inside the festival all the dishes have standardized prices so is the best of Peru’s food at a great price! No better deal!

Food in Peru: Arroz con Pato, the best of the northern cuisine‏!

One of the most distinctive dishes in Peruvian food is from the north coast, the “Arroz con Pato” or, literally translated, “Rice with duck”……………what is special about this dish? Its unique flavor that comes mostly from the species used to cook the rice, but also the way the duck is cook and the accompaniment to the plate, which is most of the times the traditional “salsa criolla” or creole sauce, or sometimes also the “Huancaina sauce”.

The dish is specifically from the Lambayeque region in Peru, where there is one of the most developed and popular cities among the coast: Chiclayo. That is why the dish is also known as “Arroz con pato a la chiclayana” which is just the way to say the dish is made “like in Chiclayo”.

The rice is prepared with butter, salt, garlic, and some pepper, but from where it takes its green color and also its great taste and fragrance is from the coriander, a herb that is very much used in Peruvian cuisine. The duck is also cooked with this mix and it is poured with some beer just to get a bit of its fragrance.

When you come to Peru, and you don’t have the chance to visit the north (which I highly recommend because of its great beaches and culture) you can still try this dish in many restaurants in Lima! One of the best restaurants is the “Fiesta”, which is originally from Chiclayo but you can also find it in Lima.

So….what are you waiting to try this sample of the great Peruvian Cuisine?