Cooking is not my forte unless it’s part of the adventure. Today that was the case. Although the main highlight of the day was the cooking class, shopping for ingredients at the local market - San Isidro - was a great beginning. We had a chance to pick out our ingredients, and experience local fruits and learn some interesting facts. Apparently Perú has 82 microclimates (the whole world has 140), so they can grow absolutely everything - from bananas, kiwis, through cucumbers, apples, strawberries to dragon fruits and grapes. And much, much more. They have 2000 kind of potatoes! (Although they don’t use them for making a moonshine; my polish heart just sunk...)
For our dinner we hade a choice of a flounder and a seebass, and meet (which is not good in Peru since the cattle is constantly walking up or down - no flat spaces for grazing) and nice variety of vegetables and fruits. The interesting fact about a flounder- it’s white on the one side and black on the other and have both eyes on the same side of it’s body. Its because it’s swimming on one side and the sun doesn’t reach its other one. It is born a regular way, but as it’s growing up, it turns, and the eye travels to the top side.
The marketplace itself was a cornucopia of fruits. It was a vegetarian heaven, it would be very easy to stay skinny and eat healthy with so many colorful choices. Also in many stalls you could have your whole meal prepared for you for approximately 6 soles, which is an equivalent of 2.5 US dollars.
The drink you have to try is chicha - it’s made from a purple corn, and sold on the streets in recycled plastic bottles. Since there is absolutely no quality control, you have no idea how long it was fermenting in that bottle, and as a result, you have no idea whats the power of the drink.
We enjoyed some amazing fruit shakes, made right from the fruits in front of us for 9 soles each.
The cooking class was a blast! It was eight of us and everybody got a task - from chopping onions, pepper or cilantro to frying potatoes. We learned how to make ceviche - a traditional Peruvian dish, made mainly of raw wish and lime juice. I learned that a really fresh fish doesn’t have a “fishy” smell - If you can smell it it’s not fresh anymore. It seems that for my whole life I was eating fish that wasn’t so fresh
We ended the day with a coffee from a small hole in the wall - Neira Cafe Lab - a highly recommended spot for all kinds of coffee concoctions (www.neiracafelab.com). As a graphic designer I was totally blown by the design of their collaterals with the owners face as a logo.
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What’s for dinner?
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We definitely don’t act like locals. Fun at the market.
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Just pretend you know what you are doing...
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| I made this ! |
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