Potato Tales from Peru, with Love...

This week has been very enjoyable for us as we were able to meet and work with the new missionaries  assigned to the Lima Temple from the USA.  We shared a little time in training and then had a pleasant lunch and conversation on Sunday. RA and I contributed a dish served cold or at room temperature called 'papas a la huancaina.' Literally it means 'potatoes from Huancayo,' which is a city and district in Peru to the east of Lima in the central highlands.  The original inhabitants, or Huancas as they were known, aside from developing this wonderful recipe for cheesy potatoes supported the Spanish Conquistadores against the Inca. They assumed the Europeans would be better overlords than the Inca.  In hindsight, three hundred years of slavery, and working the Spanish silver mines proved that decision to have been uninformed.

Papas a la Huancaina, courtesy of Wiki.  We did not take any

photos. 

The potato or papas section in our local grocery store, increíble 

We have found this dish is not often served in Peruvian restaurants as it is easily made at home.  I have included the link to the recipe we used.  The ingredients would not be the same stateside as in Peru but some improvising and substituting is possible.

Huayro potatoes are maybe mi favorita. They have purple skins and streaks
within making them popular with local chip manufacturers. Too good to
waste in chips in my opinion.

Since coming to Peru we have experienced several varieties of potatoes or 'papas' as they are known in the Quechua language. We are coming to appreciate the subtleties of their flavor and texture. Potatoes will never ever be the same again for us as they are so superior to anything from Idaho or east of the Cascades in Washington or Oregon.

Cuy with Can Chan Papas. This type absorbs the flavor of meat or

stews in which they are cooked, excellent.  This dish was prepared by

our friends the Ramos. 

The Andean camote or sweet potato from which Polynesian potatoes are
genetically linked.

Potatoes, like other things we enjoy, originated in the Andean region of South America including, beans, peppers, ground cherries, tomatoes, cotton, several varieties of corn, and peanuts. The earliest potatoes according to several accounts were first cultivated 7 to 10,000 years ago. The first Peruanos or human inhabitants arrived here some 12,000 years ago. One of their first habitations is known as Guitarrero Cave. A human mandible was found there along with remnants of many meals of corn, beans, and peppers. A fire stick, as seen on reruns of TV's Survivorman, was also recovered from the site. I was never successful making fires with one of these as a Boy Scout.

Guitarrero Cave not far from Casma.  These people were likely the ancestors 

of the Chavin long before the Inca but possessed sweet metal working and 

soldering skills. 

The fire stick recovered from Guiterrero Cave

Of potatoes, there are more than 3500 varieties in Peru. Genetically, the Polynesian sweet potato's home was in the Andean altiplano to the south of Peru near Lake Titicacca. The oldest sweet potato discovered, so far in Peru, was found in another cave called the Tres Ventanillas and carbon dated 10,000 years ago in the Chilca Canyon of Huancayo Region.  I wonder how long the Huancas have been cooking papas and with their cheesy pepper potato sauce.  So far, I have not found any information on radio carbon dated Huancaina sauce.

One theory for the spread of the Andean sweet potato discounts the seafaring ability of either early Peruvians or Polynesians and suggests the non European transmission of the sweet potato from Peru to Hawaii and the other islands of the Pacific was accomplished by seeds floating on the surf or carried aloft in the guts of the plover birds.  The problem with this theory of diffusion is  the Peruvian and Polynesian sweet potato must be started from cuttings from a vine.

Sweet Potato vines of Polynesia and Peru

The Nazca culture of early Peru have been suggested as the sailors responsible for these trans Pacific crossings. These are the people who created the giant and strange geoglyphs or Nazca Lines of Southern Peru. They flourished from approximately 300 BCE to 800 CE. A number of marine animals have been caricatured in their pottery and art, giving rise to the belief they were familiar with the sea and were possibly a seagoing people.  Another mysterious geoglyph is above the entrance to Pisco Bay in Paracas. It can be seen about 12 miles out to sea. No one presently knows why it was constructed or what it symblizes. Theories range from it being a symbol for the Andean God Viracocha to a Masonic symbol.  Carbon dating of pottery shards found near it place it during the era of the Paracas Culture of 200 BCE, predating that of the Nazca.

The Candelabra as it is called, taken from the boat on our way to the

Ballestas Islands during our August vacation.

Radio Carbon Dating and DNA studies on residues from the Cook Islands and other island locations disclose the Andean sweet potato arrived there between 1000 and 1100 CE and in Hawaii by 1290-1430 CE. Furthermore, Quechua and Maori I have been told by several of my educated Peruvian friends, share a few language cognates. This information may have come from work in the 1920's by an Italian/Argentine linguist. For example, the word for 'water' in Cusco Quechua is 'unu' while in Maori and Easter Island "unu" is to drink water. A fighting platform in Maori is called a 'puuhara' while in Quechua a 'pukhara' is a fortress.

The Candelabra with better shadowing taken from the Web

Very early on in the expansion of the Inca Empire a technique was developed to freeze dry several varieties of potatoes and fully preserve their nutritional value for extended periods of time.  The process took all of five days from start to finish. This was accomplished without vacuum chambers and liquid nitrogen cryogenic temperatures. This type of dried potatoes is called 'chuño' or 'papas secas.' We are wanting to try them too at some point. The potatoes are laid out at night in the subzero temperatures of the Andes and then exposed to direct sunlight during the day.  They were also flattened several times in the process by the feet of the indigenous Quechua. Once freeze dried they could be stored indefinitely. Carried on the backs of Inca warriors they provided the energy and fueled the expansion of the greatest empire in pre-Colombian Americas.

An Inca mummy in the fetal position.  This type 

of preservation was reserved for the the nobles 

and ruling elites. It was accomplished in the same

manner of freeze drying potatoes. Internal organs 

were first removed and then the drying and freezing 

could begin. 

This extensive variety of Peruvian potatoes has made it possible to keep crops safe worldwide in our era. This potato diversity has been necessary in preventing anything like The Great Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1852. It was the narrowness of so few cultivars or species brought back by the Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries that allowed a blight to infect and destroy harvests in Ireland.  More than a million Irish died of starvation and another million migrated.  The entire population of Ireland was reduced by 25%. Among the emigres were Patrick and Bridget Murphy Kennedy whose grandson Joseph P. would be appointed and return to the British Isles as the Ambassador to the Court of St. James by FDR. He was the founder and Patriarch of the Kennedy dynasty in America.

Patriarch and Ambassador Joe Kennedy Sr. 

The rest, as they say, is history. Among Irishmen the saying goes that "God sent the blight, but the British caused the famine."  Ireland's pastoral countryside was highly desired and taken over by the English because of their taste for beef following the spread of wealth of the industrial revolution.  Reduced to smaller and smaller parcels of growable land, the Irish poor turned to the potato and it became their main food source. Without diversity and with no resistance to blight the Irish potato crops were destroyed. Nowhere else in Europe were the consequences so dire or a people more dependent on the potato for survival than in Ireland.

The face of Irish famine, a mother and her children.

The lowly Peruvian potato or papa has played a much larger role in the story of things, more than being a food source for ten thousand some odd years here in Peru. Life for the potato farmer in Peru is probably not a lot better than his Irish counterparts were in the mid 19th Century. The potato growing regions are among the poorest in the country and local residents struggle to buy their daily bread due to the increases in cost of wheat and transportation.  The government is encouraging its residents to eat more of their own product and also bread made with potato flour. All the while they search for markets abroad for the almost infinite variety and subtlety of colors, textures, shapes and flavors of the Peruvian potato.

Steep slopes and lack of available capital insure traditional back breaking

planting of la papas del Peru

We will continue shopping and cooking this most edible and wonderful tuber. We have had only a half dozen varieties to date, a few thousand more to savor and enjoy. Time will limit this endeavor and also our diets from over indulging. The next time you order fries with your burger consider the potato and appreciate a little more of its history and the influence it has had in these many millennia throughout the world. And yes, lest anyone forget, "La Papa es Peruana."

Further reading and photos of Peruvian papas can be found on a site hosted by Limaeasy.com.