Picanterías of Arequipa- Preserving traditions, creativity, and innovation
You enter a small, simple space, and aromas waft and envelop you. You feel like you have walked into someone’s warm, welcoming home. Well, that’s what a traditional picantería is all about. Today, deemed as a National Cultural Heritage, Arequipa’s picanterías fill your hearts and stomachs of course, with happiness
Back in the 11th century, when cities started becoming more populated with Hispanic people, the main dining room of a family home, or their patios and kitchens, with walls covered in religious images and calendars of the time would transform into welcoming spaces where some of the most delicious recipes were cooked. Named “Picantes” after their characteristic spiciness the recipes revolved around crackling pork and pig’s feet and roasted fish. All recipes of course were passed down discretely over generations that probably grew up within or around these walls. These kitchens, even today are so pure and authentic that they don’t use electrical devices, just hands and ancient tools like the river stone for grinding sauces, which was passed down to only the owner’s daughter! Here, food is fresh and very local, washed down with local ‘chicha. There is no place for the frozen, pre-cooked and packaged food at all. In fact this is where you can experience myriad flavours, from different parts of the country, all in one place! But it isn’t just about the food whose recipes now travel the world and seduce even the most difficult palates. Picanterías were meeting places. Places to discuss the latest issues, political and social. Still are. And that’s how they became that warm, welcoming space that brought everyone together, at one level. Equals over food, flavor, knowledge and conversation. These are still spaces where traditions, creativity and innovation endure for centuries on and where one leaves with belly and heart full of it.
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