This past weekend I attended a festival in Lima called Mistura. It is a fair with JUST FOOD, yes you read that correct. This fair brings together all the different types of food from around Peru, including chocolate, coffee, pisco (the national alcohol). The festival was broken into all different “worlds”. There was Mundo Norteño (northern Peruvian food), Mundo Sureño (southern Peruvian food), Mundo del Ceviche, Mundo de las brasas (Rotisserie cooked meats), Mundo de los líquidos (drinks), Mundo Oriental, Mundo Amazónico (Amazonian food), Mundo Limeño (Lima style food), Mundo del Anitcucho (cow heart on a stick), Mundo Andino (food from the Andes), Mundo de las tabernas y bares (world of the taverns and bars), and Mundo de los sánguches (sandwich world).

This is a 2 week long festival that attracts people from all over Peru. I was so interesting to see all the different types of food that Peruvians eat. The food here consists of a lot of potato, rice, and meat dishes. Typically, we eat lunch at 1 or 2 pm, and lunch is the biggest meal of the day. It starts with either a type of soup, salad, or papas a la hauncaína which is a cooked, cold potato, with a cheese-pepper sauce. After that come the main course which I said is always rice, with some type of meat and/or potatoes. When we get hungry in the evening we eat the same meal we had for lunch. One of my favorites here is a dish called Salchipapas. It is hot dogs sliced very thin and fried, served over french fries with ketchup and mayonnaise. I was very surprised that I liked this dish because I have never been a fan of hot dogs.

Below are some of the pictures I took at Mistura, as well as an example of Salchipapas 🙂

The picture with the worm like bugs are a type of grub that live inside the purple, scaley looking fruit, and the people from the amazon fry them and eat them.