Bunch Grass Growing Near Cuzco (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

By Brayan Coraza Moreli, with the help of Walter Coraza Villca (translation by David Knowlton)

Andean bunch grass, also called fierce straw (paja brava) or the indigenous ichu, grows in the mountains around 3600 meters above sea level.  It reaches a meter or more in height.  It was very important in ancient times and even today has lots of uses in the towns and communities close to Cuzco. 

The straw from the bunch grass is gathered as soon as the rainy season ends, in the months of May through September.

A scythe, an arched knife with sharp teeth and a wooden handle, is used to cut the ichu grass, or straw.  After cutting it, the stems of grass are tied into bundles in order to transport them on mule or donkey back to where they are needed.

Ichu Grass Tops (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

Ichu has a great variety of uses.  Indeed, it is unusually important in our traditions.  We see it used in the construction of houses.  It was used and continues to be used in the making of adobes, dried mud bricks which contain straw.  The ichu plays the role of holding the mud together in the final bricks.  In the city of Cuzco as well as in surrounding areas you will still find many homes made of adobe.

The straw is also used to thatch the roofs of traditional homes.  With  different technique of tying the bundles of ichu the could make roofs in the form of pyramids, so when the rain falls they will be very resistant to moisture.  Each roof would last some  five to six years.  The straw would also insulate the home, keeping the heat in and making it very comfortable in our cold Andean climate.

Burro with a Bundle of Ichu (Photo: Wayra)

Just like with the wool of llamas and alpacas, our ancestors figured out how to make maximal use of our straw.  From it they made ropes.  They would twine them from the finest rope to very thick ones that could sustain bridges.  The massive ropes stretched from one side of rivers to another.  You can still find examples of this kind of work.

Straw would also form the base in our traditional storage towers, when mixed with the herb muña, to help conserve our agricultural produce and protect tubers and grains from pests.

This tough grass also helps us make our papa helada, once frozen potatoes.  You leave the potatoes out at night, on a very cold night, on a bed of straw and the freeze then thaw in the morning.  Without the straw the earth would absorb the potatoes moisture and it would be much harder to make good papa helada.

We also use the straw to make molds for Andean, hand-made cheese.

The Top of an Ichu Stem (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

People would also use the straw to make isanqas, which are strainers for chicha.  First they would make a  basket from the creeper we call vijuco or forest rope.  Inside it we would lay straw and then strain the chicha.

Finally, this tough grass, the ichu, is an important food for our animals such as llama, alpaca, vicuña, and the guanacos.

With the passage of time and the development of new technologies many of the important uses of our ichu have been forgotten.  Nevertheless, it continues to be a key to life in our Andes.

Ichu and the Landscape (Photo: Wayra)

Ichu, the Tough Bunch Grass of the Andes Sustains Life is a post from: Cuzco Eats

The Great Highway From Cuzco to Antisuyo (Photo: Wayra)

By Fernando Delgado Aguirre (translation by David Knowlton)

Cuzco recently celebrated the nomination of the Qhapaq Ñan, the Royal Inca Highway, for the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ceremonies took place on the esplanade by the Qoricancha, Cuzco’s ancient Temple of the Sun. Peru’s Minister of Culture was in charge of the ceremony and was accompanied by his peers from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador all of whose countries hold portions of this amazing pre-Columbian road system.

Among all the activities, perhaps the most appreciated by the people of Cuzco and visitors was the presentation in Cuzco’s Main Square, its Plaza de Armas. Delegations from the original peoples who formed Tawantinsuyo—the Inca Empire—performed traditional music and dance to celebrate the campaign for World Heritage status and model the unity of a state before the Europeans broke it apart.

Induced by this conjoined initiative of different countries who come together to value our ancestors’ work, we also reflect on our history. We find the foundations of the South American peoples. They were joined together and in constant communication because of this extensive network of roads, much of which is surprisingly still extant.

Celebrating the Nomination of Qhapac Ñan to UNESCO (Photo: Wayra)

Without doubt it was the key to the administrative success of Tawantinsuyo. The Qhapaq Ñan, Royal Inca Highway, was even admired by the Spanish invaders Stupefied by the amazing structures designed for their environments, the Spanish traveled this highway to Cuzco. Various chronicles narrate the magnificence of the highway that connected them with inns (tambos). There they could rest, take provisions, and even find arms if necessary. The roads were traveled by thousands of persons. In every inn there was always a caretaker, as well as a messenger waiting for an oncoming one in order to receive his message and carry it onward.

None of this amazing system of communication would have been possible without the network of roads that were in perfect condition. From then until today the roads fell out of constant repair. In the last few years, governments have begun to repair the roads for their value to tourism.

Today we also find thousands or stories that come with this route. Many of them are like legends and pass from generation to generation. They are told and spread in social events, birthdays, the taking on of cargo responsibilities for feasts, or in simple afternoons of casual conversation in chicherias or guariques, popular gathering points. Many of these are located close to where the road passes, as if they were modern tambos ready to provide chicha for travelers along the highway.

It is difficult to distinguish among so many stories which are really true. Nevertheless, there will be one, at least, that will leave you with lots to think about. Older people tell stories with such passion, perhaps remembering their best years. They tell how Cuzco was in the old days when it wasn’t so populated. They talk about these roads that connected people in the different neighborhoods as well as the different earth shrines we call waqas.

It was a wide road that was carefully paved with white stones all up and down its length. Under the light of the moon or the sun it was as if the roads were illuminated so people could clearly find the path.

Today you can easily walk from San Blas along the old highway that led to Antisuyo, one of the Empire’s four quarters, towards the Temple of the Moon.

Looking at the Map of the Qhapac Ñan (Photo: Wayra)

The old people also tell how in their day many of the huacas, the sacred places, did not have the importance they have today, with the growth of tourism. As a result, many shrines were abandoned as were large stretches of the highway. Some were even torn apart as people lifted stones for the foundations of their homes.

People say that it was not unusual to see parts of the road glow as if on fire. In those places many people would look for hidden or ancient treasure. As a result people will speak of the caretaker of some hacienda or other who found fortune in this way and immediately left his work. He would instead buy luxurious and ostentatious properties in the city. But oftentimes the curse of the gold would damage him and his family. If it did not kill you, it would bring family tragedy and other negative effects.

There are many similar stories and much more told even today along the edges of the Qhapaq Ñan.

The Great Inca Highway Qhapac Ñan Creates Excitement These Days is a post from: Cuzco Eats

Cantutas in Cuzco (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

By Fidelus Coraza Morveli (translation by David Knowlton)

The sacred flower of the Incas is called cantuta, although in Cuzco people know it more by its Quechua name, qantu.  It is native to the Andes of Peru and Bolivia between 1200 meters above sea level and 3800.  It is said that the Incas found in it sacred essences that made water stay pure longer.

The plant is a kind of small branchy, bush that stands two to three meters high.  Its flower comes in the form of  an elongated bell.  You can find it in white, yellow, pink, and intense red.

People say the flower was a colorful beauty that left the Incas amazed. They promoted its cultivation throughout Tawantinsuyo, the Inca Empire. They dedicated it to the Sun, their god.  In this way it became known as the sacred flower of the Incas.

It is also considered a ceremonial flower.  It is said that when ever the Inca participated in a ritual or ceremony his path was adorned with these flowers like a carpet as a sign of respect.  The cantuta flower was also used in the warachicuy, the great ritual of coming of age.  It adorned the foreheads of the youth who had to undergo tests of bravery and physical resistance in order to pass into adulthood and become considered warriors.

The use of the cantuta continued after the end of the Inca Empire.  In the beginning of the twentieth century the flower was commonly used for funeral ceremonies.  People had the belief that the dead during their journey to the other world could calm their thirst by drinking the nectar that the flower has inside.

Wearing Catutas to Make an Offering in Oropesa (Photo: Wayra)

The inhabitants of the high plateau, the altiplano, in the nearby state of Puno and continuing into Bolivia, made necklaces of cantutas that they would hang on their doorways as a symbol of hospitality and welcome for visitors.  Today the women of the islands in Lake Titicaca who are single maintain the tradition of wearing a cap that takes the form of a cantuta flower.  In this way, during the various celebrations the youths have no trouble figuring out who are the young, unmarried women they can court.

It is really surprising to see how these customs are transmitted from the past and conserved even in our days.  In this case I am referring to the veneration of the Apus, the sacred mountains to who we pay devotion by placing cantuta flowers on their slopes as a sign of respect and appreciation.

Cantuta Flowers (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

From the days of our ancestors, the cantuta has had a very important role in the life of Cuzco’s people and our neighbors. Nowadays it is the national flower of both Bolivia and Peru.

Besides this it is used for colorful ornamentation.  Its thin branches are used to make baskets and from its leaves is obtained a yellow dye.  The cantuta also is said to have medicinal properties.  People say it fights diarrhea when its stem of leaves are taken as infusions, as well as cough, jaundice, and inflammation of the eyes.

The cantuta continues as an integral part of our beautiful landscape and, like so many other things of beauty, has lots of meaning and gives us pragmatic benefits.

The Sacred Inca Flower and National Flower of Peru

The Sacred Flower of the Incas and National Flower of Peru, the Cantuta is a post from: Cuzco Eats

Dressed as an Inca for Tupac Amaru Today (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

By David Knowlton

In the Main Square of Cuzco, two-hundred twenty years ago, Túpac Amaru II was killed in a bloody show intended to consolidate Spanish and elite control for generations. This morning, University and Municipal authorities participated in a rite to remember his death and claim his heritage on the same square where he died.

People dressed as Incas were addressing the Apus, the mountain Lords, when I first got there. They held conch shells for blowing like trumpets, drums, and held aloft a smoking brazier on which, after words of to the Apus, celebrating Cuzco, and Tupac Amaru, they made palo santo smoke. This wood’s smoke has a strong scent like incense. People pulled the smoke to them as the crowd pushed closer to get some on themselves.

The Incas marched away as the University officials tested a microphone by the Paraninfo Universitario, the University building on the main square. With officials gathered and a brass band from the Educandas School for Girls playing, they began the official ceremony honoring the martyr.

Celebration by the Paraninfo in Cuzco (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

In death, Túpac Amaru lives on. He fills statues, discourses, academic tomes, and an ideal of courage and the struggle for the rights of Perú’s indigenous peoples. On Cuzco’s main square there is a low, stone cross as a monument to him while in the suburban Wanchaq there is a large equestrian statue of Tupac Amaru ascendant.

Scholars debate him and the complexities of his uprising. Nonetheless, he represents today, in the mouths of politicians and others, two fights: the historic struggle against the Spanish in conjunction with the highland struggle against the coast, as well as a contemporary indigenous struggle against a central government which does not respect their rights nor those of their communities.

Celebrating Tupac Amaru Today

The issue is particularly hot today. Many, if not most, people in Cuzco feel betrayed by the current national president Ollanta Humala. In Cuzco they gave him close to eighty percent of their vote, but they feel he has pushed them aside in favor of multinational mining and petroleum companies who wish to exploit or are withdrawing minerals and oil from Peru, especially from the lands of indigenous people.

These days the national government depends on a sly argument that claims the Quechua and Aymara speakers of the highlands are not indigenous but rather that in the process of time they have become campesinos, often translated into English as peasants. The importance of this linguistic change is that campesinos do not have the right to be consulted prior to their land being taken for mineral or petroleum extraction, while Indians do.

Incas Honoring Tupac Amaru Today (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

This morning the mayor of Wanchaq gathered with officials at the statue of Tupac Amaru whose horse lifts proudly from its main square. They laid flowers. Honor guards from the schools came to be present as the flag of Peru was raised into drizzly skies.

This afternoon, sicuris, pan pipe players, will come in bands, both from Cuzco and from the land of Tupac Amaru, Tinta ( up road towards the border with the State of Puno). With the rough, yet enchanting sound of these indigenous reeds, pulsing to the beating of drums, these bands join the city with rural Cuzco to honor a man whose death made him a symbol which continues to motivate the people of Tawantinsuyo, the former Inca Empire.

Statue of Tupac Amaru in Wanchaq (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

Tupac Amaru Lives in Cuzco’s Hearts is a post from: Cuzco Eats

A Pablito.

By Brayan Coraza Morveli (translated by David Knowlton)

With the feast of Corpus Christi, another real challenge of faith begins. While most Cusqueños are drawn up into the processions and activities in its many chapels composing this feast, many others travel to Ocongate district by the high, snow clad mountain Ausangate, where the Lord of Qoyllur Riti is found. They go there to make all their pleas, both prayers and desires, known to this Mountain Lord. People say that if they go three times consecutively one of their petitions will be fulfilled. 

A portion of the masses of people who go are the Pablitos. They are called the Lord of Qoyllur Riti’s Soldiers. Unlike the civilians who go, these men have the mission of protecting and taking care of the Sanctuary so that this traditional pilgrimage can continue for many more years.

The Pablitos are organized into eight nations from Cuzco’s different provinces. One of them is the Nation of Tawantinsuyo, which is organized in the city of Cuzco. In turn, this nation is organized into many troupes (comparsas). Each troupe has to organize a series of choreographies and also count on the support of jurqados, people who are named to sponsor the event as padrinos, as if the troupe where a child and they its godparent. They support by providing a car or truck in which the Pablitos can travel to the Sanctuary. The troupes also require Mama Huaylas to take charge of preparing their food during the pilgrimage.

Edson Rios Huaman, a young pilgrim spoke with us about his path of faith. He said his parents would take him on the pilgrimage when he was young. When he was older he continued to go on his own, as a civilian, for three years.

Pablitos in Cuzco’s Feast

Then he was motivated to belong to the troupe Centro Cultural Villa Colorado that form the Tawantinsuyo Nation. He said that his first trip as a Pablito was very interesting. It was different than going as a civilian.  He suddenly realized the obligations and responsibilities of the Pablitos.

The Pablitos depart from the Church of San Pedro, Rios reports. That is the place where all the troupes gather. From the Church they take trucks to Ocongate. Before they can start their journey upward on foot, two Pablitos from each troupe have to go first to Qoyllur Riti to hear the 6 am mass.

When the troupe does arrive at the Sanctuary it begins dancing, announcing in this way its arrival. They go to receive the first rays of sunlight on the top of this snow clad mountain.

Rios tells they also take time to “baptize” those who have only recently joined the Pablitos. The new members take off the costume that protects them from the cold and place their hands on the ice. The caporal, who is the head of the troupe, the person responsible for directing them, whips them with a San Martin whip consisting of nine smaller whips.  It is called wichi.

The Pablitos have the responsibility of maintaining the sanctuary, in the double sense of keeping it clean as well as making sure no one damages the shrine.

Small Pablito Performing in Cuzco’s Feast

It is said that on each pilgrimage one Pablito will die.  Sometimes it is because of old age, they get sick on the path, or they fall into the cracks in the ice during the pilgrimage. Nevertheless, each troupe returns to Cuzco with joy. They dance around the Plaza de Armas, the Main Square, filled with joy.

The Pablitos really are soldiers who undertake the pilgrimage each year. They also recruit more pilgrims to take care of the sanctuary.  Without having fear of a possible death and confronting the harsh, highland cold they maintain their tradition and customs. They will continue to carry out this task until their death, as the Pablitos continue from generation to generation.

Edson Rios Huaman and Fellow Pablitos on the Snow Field

Soldiers of the Old God Yaya, the Pablitos of Cuzco is a post from: Cuzco Eats

A Half-Finished Bowl of Chairo Soup (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

By Arnold Fernandez Coraza (translated by David Knowlton)

The pleasure of the rains departs and the dry season arrives. In it all the farmers now see its time to begin the harvest of their fields’ products. The season begins in which Cuzco will enjoy abundant Andean crops:  including potatoes, corn, broad beans, and more.

People are happy to see that all their hard work in the fields has paid off and they now can eat food from them as well as have some to sell in the markets. In the homes, the children are happy as they wait for the meals their mothers will make them from the harvests, such as lunch of lisas, lunch of chaquepa, lunch of moron wheat, lunch of chairo and many more. They each are very nutritious and fill the children and adults with the energy they need to be able to carry out their daily labors. Agricultural work is hard for all.

The typical lunch of chairo in Cuzco is the dish that contains more Andean ingredients than almost any other. It uses fava beans, wheat, chuño (or freeze-dried potatoes), potatoes, spinach, squash, carrots, corn, tripe, and finally a sprig of fresh oregano. From these ingredients comes a good lunch in a single dish, a rich soup, that is filled with all variety of vitamins and proteins.

Chuno (Freeze dried potatoes – around 3cm wide) Photo: Alonzo Riley

While common in Cuzco’s homes there are only a few places that prepare this meal. It is not easily found. Even in the markets they only make it occasionally. Nevertheless, our caseras, the market women, are those who tell us we should eat this hardy soup filled with proteins. They even tell us the real way to make it so that we can make it at home with all the products they sell. They say it is easy.

Outside of Cuzco’s homes, the most recommended place to enjoy this incredible lunch is found on Choquechaca street. Its name is Quinta Eulalia. There you can enjoy this meal and chase it down with a delicious cold chicha morada.

All the necessary ingredients are found in the city’s wholesale markets. The caseras sell them at an economical price and also give out tips on their preparation so that you will be able to make this typical Cuzco meal if you wish.

To write this note, I asked my mom about chairo. She said that some years ago, when she was a girl, they only ate the products of local fields. This dish was the most important because it contain the largest amount of nutrients. They would often make it for lunch and for special occasions, as well as for family Sundays. It was my grandfather’s favorite lunch.

Fresh White Corn (Photo: Alonzo Riley) 

For his birthdays my grandmother would honor him by making this dish. Then they would celebrate with some large glasses of chicha. At night, the party would come to its peak when my grandmother would kill some guinea pigs and prepare a marvelous conejada or guinea pig meal. Now satisfied with having spent a day filled with joy they would go to sleep contented.

Chairo

Ingredients

_ potatoes
_ green fava beans
_ wheat
_ chuño
_ tripe
_ spinach
_ zapallo squash
_ carrots
_ 1 sprig of oregano
_ onions
_ garlic
_ cumin
_ mote (hominy corn)
_ salt

Fava Beans and Carrots (Photo: Alonzo Riley)

Preparation

First of all you make what we call a dressing by sauteing minced garlic and diced onion with a dash of cumin. Once the dressing is ready you add to it boiled water and then add the well washed tripe as well as the wheat. Boil these for an hour.

Once the time has passed you remove the tripe and slice them into rounds. Then you add the vegetables cut into small rectangles and the potatoes cut into fourths.

When the potatoes are almost cooked you add the chuño. It should have been well soaked in water and then broken into bits. Stir the soup while it boils for about five minutes more. Then you add the sliced tripe, the minced oregano, and the boiled mote as well as salt to taste.

The chairo is now served in big bowls along with a piece of bread.

Foreigner Enjoying a Chairo Soup (Photo: Wayra)

Translator’s note:

Chuño is a freeze dried potato that can be obtained in Peruvian stores in the United States or through online Latin and Peruvian stores. You can also use white chuño called moraya, although its flavor is different.

The wheat called for is called wheat berries in the US, or just grains of husked wheat.

The aapallo squash is similar to a hubbard.

Chairo Soup Fills You with Energy and Tradition is a post from: Cuzco Eats

Wheat Bursting From Stone

People often go to the mountainside to catch a breath from their daily life. The mountain can bring a needed sense of smallness. It can make the problems of life be seen as temporary compared to the rock that lasts so long. The rock’s breath takes years. The human’s breath lasts only seconds. But they are not so different when they come together.

The mountain can also just be a great place to have fun.

Mimicking the Grass

A Mouth of the Stones

Exhaling and Making Dust

Life on the Mountain

Seeking Still Stones

Rock Climb

Rock Above Horizon

Breathing with Mountainside Rocks is a post from: Cuzco Eats

Lomo Saltado at a Popular Eatery in Lima

By David Knowlton

Perhaps the most well known Peruvian dish, lomo saltado is both codified and constantly being recreated these days. Like so much else it is undergoing reinterpretation and redefinition. At the same time discussions take place about what its essence is so that its tradition can be maintained.

Lomo saltado arose in the woks of Chinese Peruvians. They also created other important national dishes, such as arroz chaufa, or fried rice, and introduced the sinicized siyao to Peru when everywhere else in Latin America it came later, most likely during the period of Gringo dominance and so is called salsa de soya, or soy sauce.

Lomo saltado developed in Peru around the time when mass migration began to the capital city of Lima. Popular eateries developed. The dish spread rapidly throughout urban Peru. It was even present in Cuzco by the forties and probably earlier.

It came to signify the creole and the mass, nationalist Peru that was developing in the half century after the disastrous War of the Pacific. It also stood as different from the food of Peru’s indigenous peoples who were urbanizing, Hispanizing and creolizing to an unprecedented degree.

As Peruvian food expanded outward from its Andean home, lomo saltado came to be found on every menu. This was before the boom in Peruvian gastronomy and its careful definition and promotion. The international reach of lomo saltado It was fueled by the migration of Peruvians outward looking for work during the difficult decades prior to and during the Shining Path and MRTA revolutions.

Basic Lomo Saltado at a Cuzco Eatery

In the process, lomo saltado had become codified and that code widespread. It was a stir fry of strips of beef, preferably loin, that included tomatoes, Peru’s red onions, french fried potatoes, a splash of soy sauce and a bit of vinegar. It was obligatorily served to the side of a mound of white rice. This was the boiled white rice typical of Chinese cooking. It was not the arroz graneado, the pre-toasted rice rice of creole food. In addition the fried potatoes where mixed in with the stir fry and took on the flavor.

It was always impressive to watch people cook the dish, whether at street side eateries in Lima or restaurants in the highlands. In a burst of shaking and flame, the ingredients were rendered into your dish and then laid on your plate next to a mound of formed riced scooped from a large pot.

It was also unbelievably good, even when done in an ordinary fashion. The meat was filled with flavor and combined beautifully with the tomato’s semicooked acidity, the almost gone tartness of the onions and the nuttiness of the fries. The soy sauce and bare spurt of vinegar drew it altogether into an amalgam of taste.

With the push for development and promotion of Peru’s cuisine,  lomo saltado became useful of an example of expanded mixing, or mestizaje, the great slogan of nationalist Peru and an ideal for its indigenous population. The model of Peru’s Chinese inhabitants seemed percfect. From their woks, their technique of stir frying, came not a Chinese dish, but a Peruvian dish as it joined Peru’s onions and potatoes with Chinese technique and ingredients. It somehow was less troubled than the mixing going on as Peru’s Indians struggled to fit into its Creole culture and yet maintain some sense of themselves and their culture.

Lomo Saltado at ChiCha de Gastón Acurio (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Lomo_Saltado._Chicha_de_Gastón_Acurio,_Cusco .jpg)

In the recent rush to update and improve Peruvian cuisine, lomo saltado has been scrutinized in order to promote it as the banner of a new, proud Peru. This Peru would be argued to be as good as any nation both to its own citizens and as a worthy member of the international community. Its cuisine was held to deserve inclusion in the world’s repertoire of great cuisines.

People such as Gastón Acurio took the dish apart to think through the techniques used to make it. They did this to seek to improve it or give it just a touch of ingenuity and invention if not improvement all the while maintaining its essence that had to be defined. In the process, they looked one by one at the ingredients and asked about their quality and consistency, as well as their relationship to the whole.

As a result, lomo saltado in fine restaurants is no longer the same. It carries the moniker of tradition and Peru’s national pride, but is an individual work of art, often claimed by a named chef.

To see this, you need only look on Google for all the different recipes for this dish attributed to Gaston Acurio, or look in Google Images for pictures of the resulting dishes on one site or another. There you will see a witness to the ongoing reinvention of this staple of Peru.

Lomo Saltado (Rice and Potatoes Not Shown) by Chef Alberto Coraza

Everything can change, except for involving meat and some combination of tomatoes and onions, and being sauteed or stir fried. It can be served on lettuce for a salad, or can have the potatoes on the side like the rice. You can even leave them off. You can use soy sauce or not, and so on.

Like Peru, lomo saltado is moving into the future with every cooking. Inevitably a winnowing process will occur as one recipe or another wins out and becomes more generally accepter. But now is a great time to try the dish, enjoy its history, and the breadth of recreations. It is likely to surprise and delight you, while always seeming fresh.

Tradition and Change in Peru’s Lomo Saltado is a post from: Cuzco Eats

Foreigner Walking down Cuzco Streets

By Fernando Delgado Aguirre (translation by Walter Coraza Morveli and David Knowlton)

From the Cuzco of before to the Cuzco of today is a journey between the known and the lost. Only in vain could we hope that times past would become todays. Nonetheless, in spite of everything there are places that take us into the past without having to find a time machine.

Cuzco is both an ancient and a modern city. It has received various names, such as “Noble and Great” given by the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro. Other names given by different organizations include “The Archeological Capital of South America” or “World Heritage Site”. These witness to the popularity our city has attained in the world. They not only remember the historical importance of our city, they also reference the mystery enclosed in it.

The “Imperial City” brings together a past composed of the mythic, the magic, the splendid, the glorious and even the tragic. It contains today many evidences of that past.

When the Spanish arrived Cuzco held the shape of a mountain lion. It head was the complex of Sacsayhuaman and its tail, the confluence of two rivers, the Saphi and the Huatanay.

At that time the city was the capital of the great empire of Tawantinsuyo, one of the largest empires in pre-Modern history. Like the empire, it too was divided into four suyus, or quarters. In this way visitors from each of the four quarters of the empire would find themselves in a palce that corresponded to their origin in the empire.

Plaza de Armas Cuzco

As a result, Cuzco brought together different settles (mitmaqkuna), soldiers, and visitors from all of Tawantinsuyo. Cuzco was converted into the most cosmopolitan place in the New World. Today in the twenty-first century it continues as a very cosmopolitan place. It maintains its magic and expands outward to the world.

The mountain lion city today is undergoing a strenuous demographic growth which gives it different cultural nuances. Never the less it has not lost the enchantment which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. They come from all over the world to see Machu Picchu, a wonder of the world, but also the many different archeological parks that are found in the region as well as the different architectural treasures that adorn the city.

Many tourists are enchanted with the experience of Cuzco, its traditions and customs, the different cultural manifestations, its gastronomy, its people and the many mysteries hidden in the city.

Today the majority of Cuzco inhabitants work in tourism in one way or another. There are always new tourist services being generated. Tourists now are guided to the most popular places in the metropolitan area of Cuzco, from parks to chicherias (places serving chicha and often food). There are many different ways to walk through the city to visit the traditional neighborhoods or the different places within the city. There is adventure tourism and cultural tourism in the different indigenous communities that the region holds.

In its enchanting landscape as well as the architectural harmony kept by the perpetual city in its streets, passages, and walls, filled with history. They give it a magical beauty that many times traps those who look for a good place in which to live in the world.

Cosmopolitan Conversation

For that reason in the last decades people from all voer the world have come to Cuzco to live for a while in this city. Even though once they arrive many require time to acclimate themselves because of the altitude. The various valleys that compose Cuzco host numerous foreigners who prefer the tranquility that is found in Cuzcos streets.

One only needs to walk through the traditional neighborhoods of San Blas, San Sebastian, Santa Ana, or San Jeronimo to find places preferred by foreigners who have found a home in Cuzco, a magical city that becomes more and more cosmopolitan.

A Cosmopolitan City Grows is a post from: Cuzco Eats

Mother Caring for Her Son

By David Knowlton, with the help of Walter, Brayan, and Arnold, the Cuzco Eats team

Mothers will be celebrated throughout Cuzco today as Peru celebrates Mother’s Day. In honor of Cuzco’s women, and not just mothers, we wanted to give some distinctive details of life in the Imperial city of Cuzco.

Perhaps the most important figure of Motherhood here is not the greeting card mother or the endless balloons and flower bouquets enshrined with words of love, sacrifice, patience, and dedication to their children. Instead it is the Pachamama a woman with very deep roots into the Andean past.

She is the Lady of Space and Time, although located in the earth and its hills and mountains. May is a time when she begins to rest from the expense of energy during the growing season. These days the people of Cuzco begin to make ovens of dirt clods in the city’s patios as well as in nearby fields. They form them carefully into a carefully balanced dome shape with a rounded opening. This requires skill and patience as they work the puzzle to put the various clods together so they support each other and make a closed vault with no other support than the clods.

The Earth Oven for Huatia

They fill the vault with sticks and light a fire, burning it to an ash and intensely heating the clods. When the fire fades they break the vault and start laying potatoes and other tubers, as well as broad beans, in the dirt before covering it all in a mound of dirt. Then they wait, while talking, laughing, and drinking. After the right amount of time, maybe twenty minutes, they carefully rake back the dirt and “harvest” the now cooked tubers and fava beans. They eat and eat, peeling back the skins and adding an uchukuta, a hot sauce, onto the food.

Cooking, transforming food, is here symbolized as part of the great image of the Pachamama, who carries food within her, tubers and other roots, and who sprouts seeds, feeding them to grow into food.

The image conjoins with the idea of a woman and her womb, growing seed into a child, then clothing it–like placing uchu, hot sauce, on the potatoes–and caring for it as it grows.

When we were discussing this among the Cuzco Eats team here in a cafe here in Cuzco, Brayan carried the idea further. “Just as the Pachamama has her skirt, the sides of the hills on which we all played as children, so too our mothers have skirts on which we sat and nursed or later climbed when we were children.”

Mantay in Cuzco

Nourishing and watching over are certainly key characteristics of the Pachamama, as well as the mountain Apus, Lords, who arise from her. It is common in Quechua to compare people to domestic animals and the earth or mountains to herders who look out for them and care for them.

But the relationship is never one way. Just as it requires villagers and city dwellers to make offerings to the earth in August as a kind of feeding or payment, it also requires children and domestic animals to do things for their mothers, whether these are household tasks, outright work, or even taking flowers and balloons, or a cake, to their mother to greet her today.

That word “greet” is important. People use the Latinate word saludar, whose root is salus, related to the Latin greeting salve.  As a verb it leads to a another word, salvation, as well as to the idea of wishing good health and fortune. The greeting of a mother, whether today or any day, is an auspicious act focused on and made serious in Cuzco, not because of Roman origins, but because of the way it combines with Quechua understandings of human interaction.

Women in Traditional Dress in Cuzco

As a result let us look just a bit at some of the language of greetings. In Cuzco we find the words mamá or papá, sometimes in the diminutive, used to address people in all kinds of circumstances. In any case, its point is to express warmth as well a to build a kin-like relationship for a moment, whose essence lies in the caring for each other and doing things for each other typical of Andean reciprocity, Ayni.

Walter pointed out that when the people of Cuzco are walking the streets and see a woman dressed in a pollera, a broad traditional skirt, and perhaps wearing a hat they will call her mantay, a word in local Quechua which is said to mean “my mother”. They also call women from rural areas, often in indigenous dress, as well s market women, mamachas, which is the Quechua word for Lady as well as mother, like in Pachamama, with the Quechua suffix -cha, which expresses warmth and endearment.

While we were discussing this, Walter and Arnold argued for children it was like every older woman was their mother and would take care of them if they needed. In return, they owed them respect and warmth, acknowledging their position as senior women and mothers over the children, so they greeted them, not with a ma’am, or Spanish señora–that is reserved for upper class women, instead they called the one version or another of the word mother.

Roses for Mother’s Day

The idea of motherhood, like in Polynesia with its famous Hawaiian kinship terminological system, is spread out from the nuclear family mother, the ideal of Mother’s Day, to encompass all women of a generation above you of your rough class. From there it is not hard to broaden the idea to include the Earth herself, in her encompassing of Space and Time.

We at Cuzco Eats wish all women in Cuzco a happy Mother’s Day and celebrate with them this very rich and complex culture of their’s which makes sense of their daily lives in ways that are not those of the international industries who depend on sales for this day.

Roses for Women in Cuzco

Mantay, Motherhood in Cuzco is a post from: Cuzco Eats