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Gastronomy

The Sea Was Served

Blessed by the coldness of the Pacific Ocean, fishing in the Peruvian sea has always been abundant and diverse. Ancient civilizations that settled throughout the Peruvian coast used it as a means for survival, especially in the north, where the tribes also sustained their economy through agriculture and fruits. The north developed one of the most extraordinary prehispanic cultures: Mochica, from the discovery of the grave of El Señor de Sipan in Lambayeque, a spectacular finding which National Geographic dedicated more than 50 pages to. It has been possible to reconstruct the life and miracles of the mochicas with accuracy, and in this case, we pry into their cultivated gastronomy.

The countryside wasn’t precisely the anchor that stopped our nomad ancestors in northern Peru and the rest of the costal area; it was the sea. At the skirts of the richest ocean in the planet grew cultures that now fascinate and astound, as they sustained themselves solely on two activities: fishing and the gathering of shellfish. One of the staple foods of the Paracas, Nazca, Mochica, and Chimú cultures was, without a doubt, this infinite variety of fish, scallops, lobster, crab, sea urchin and octopus that the Pacific shelters. Iconographic vestiges also tell us how they fished and cooked these gifts from the sea, and what place they occupied in rituals and daily life.

There is no pre-Columbian human settlement that does not show evidence of the importance of the sea to the ancient Peruvians. Dr. Hermann Busse de la Guerra, in História maritima del Perú– Época prehispánica (edited by the Institute of Estudios Histórico-Marítimos) affirms: ‘huge shells tell us that for centuries, the people who lived off the sea consumed the exquisite, highly nourishing and delicious meat found in scallops, and the cooking remains found in the dumps along the coast, indicate that fish, obtained by net or hook, was part of the diet of the groups settled along the coast much more so than foods from the earth.’

In those days the craft of fishing was one of the most important. And it is not hard to imagine the brave moches or chimús in their caballitos de totora going many miles out to sea, far away from the coast, until losing sight of land itself. They had to be courageous and tough, resistant to fatigue and good swimmers.

After the wooden raft that dominated the sea, the most important vessel in the pre-Columbian era was the caballito de totora. According to the information from the experts and the ‘repeated and comprehensible’ testimony, according to Dr. Busse, from ceramics, ‘especially the mochica’, we can say that the caballitos de totora of today (the ones you can appreciate in large numbers in the sea of Huanchaco and Trujillo) are exactly the same as the ones made thousands of years ago. The construction system and use given, it seems, has been preserved with all its details.

The abundant fishing of the ancient Peruvians was not limited to the coast. They knew four methods of preserving fish: roasting, smoking, sun-drying and salting. This way they could transport it from one place to another and exchange it for other products. It is easy to prove from archeological findings that the three Peruvian natural regions gained from this barter system. Wool from llamas, alpaca and vicuña were uncovered in the textile factories of the coast and, at the same time, marine products are common in the tombs of the sierra. The spondilus, for example, an exotic mollusk from the Equatorial Sea, was an object used in rituals and ceremonies throughout the country.

These extraordinary knights of the sea used fishing methods still effective today, such as the net and harpoon. They not only knew how to throw the net with ability, but they also weaved them with prodigal skill. Small, for personal use or extensive like the chinchorro, which requires plenty of hands before being thrown out to sea.


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