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Gastronomy

The Sea Was Served (part 2)

Delights from the earth and sea

Without a doubt, after the mochica culture (which flourished between 200 and 700 a.c.) the northern prehispanic civilizations achieved their maximum sophistication. The most unquestionable proof of this statement was the finding, in 1987, of the tomb of El Señor de Sipan. The splendor discovered surrounding this priest, warrior and Moche monarch, gave irrefutable clues of the life of this culture. Because of these remains, we now know, among other things, what this character ate and drank. We can even reconstruct the royal banquet.

As we have mentioned, the coastal cultures sustained their economy through fishing, though also through agriculture. The archeologist Walter Alve– who oversaw the discovery– assures us that Peru has the driest deserts in the planet. “The mochicas– he explains– irrigated their deserts, diverging the rivers which came down the mountain range and plowed the earth with outstanding knowledge.”

Several grains, maize, yucca, peanuts, tomatoes, ají, rocoto, lima beans, beans, potatoes, avocado, oca potato, olluco, squash, lúcuma, guayaba, chirimoya, tumbo, were common products in their diets. These moches ate well and with pleasure. The spices were always appreciated on the table. They enjoyed the warmness of the molle pepper and aromatic herbs such as the muña, the sachaorégano and huacatay. And if in those days there was no pork, chicken or cow, there were wild geese, deer, quail, rabbits, guinea pigs, llamas and alpacas, not to mention the gifts from the sea. The moches ate octopus, crab, sole, scallops, snails, seaweed– “with the seaweed they avoided goiter” says Walter Alva– catfish, and many more. They also ate fish from the rivers and the famous shrimp. The fishing method for this famous crustacean has also been recorded: with cone-shaped reed baskets, just as they do today. They didn’t miss a thing.

The Moche huacos, which were very realistic, represented aspects of everyday life: how they sowed seeds, what they hunted and what they ate. The utilitarian ceramic found in several tombs indicates that they cooked their food by steaming, boiling, roasting over fire or by using the process known as pachamanca (where the food is wrapped in banana peels and buried underground with hot coals). They never used oil, though they could have made it with maize or peanuts, and there were no traces of frying with animal fat. It is possible, according to Alva, that they manufactured some kind of peanut butter to spread over food and therefore achieve some sort of frying. “They took advantage, as well, of fruits from the carob tree– explains the archeologist– especially the glucose to make sweets. In Lambayeque, we still have a custard made from the carob tree which has a moche name: yapisin”

Distinguishing soups from the north like el espesado (thick bean soup) and el chinguirito (dried salty fish cebiche) are also moche heritage. Today’s chinguirito is a cebiche made with lemon juice, and acidic fruit brought from far away lands. This does not mean that the ancient northern people ate raw or dry fish; it is possible they used tumbo juice or developed their own take on sashimi or cebiche, served with ají and herbs.

The high aesthetic level of the Moche’s jewelry and gold repeats itself in their food and ritual banquets. Iconographic evidence shows us, for example, plates with feet painted on so they could walk towards the entertained monarch. A variety of skewers (guinea pig’s meat pricked on metal rods) or fish delicately featured on a blanket and served to the authority in a protocol banquet.

Many of us enjoy cooking and savoring our latest culinary experiments with friends. This custom was common among the moches and other northern settlers. When the caciques went out for a walk they had an entourage of followers bearing assorted delights to offer anyone they found along the way. “To be charitable was a demonstration of power”, explains Alva.
 
The mochica culture was of an overwhelming complexity. Its inhabitants, as we have said, were farmers, jewelers and fishermen (one chest shaped like an octopus and the other like a crab, which were revealed for the first time in 1997, represent rituals of subsistence based fundamentally on marine resources). Furthermore, they knew of sailing, philosophy and divination. The small objects that represent human figures and spiders, characteristic of the mochica, draw our attention, as they could have been instruments of divination according to some experts, father Arriaga among them.

Just like food took a great part in their representations, so did war, and nobody beat them at war. In the symbols left behind for history, we can see the capture, torture and sacrifice of their prisoners. There are banners with beautiful stitchings of ulluchu fruits, anticoagulant seeds from the jungle, which generally appear alongside a chalice offered to the monarch filled with the victim’s blood.

A royal banquet

El Señor de Sipan died 17 centuries ago. At the age of 35, 1.67 meters tall and nothing indicated that his passing was violent. He journeyed to the ukju pacha (world beneath) with four subjects and his faithful dog. Like all our pre-Columbian ancestors, the mochicas believed you could take all your belongings in death, including food, this way they could sustain themselves in their new life.

When the team of scientists lead by Walter Alva found those penetrating eyes looking at him from a distance of 1,700 years, the moche monarch was dressed with his most luxurious garments made of gold, silver, copper, feathers and sea shells. He was surrounded by 200 ceramics with traces of food and beverages, which wouldn’t have been enough to who buried him. It so happens that there was an adjacent chamber with 1,137 basins that contained traces of a variety of foods, such as chicha, fish, beans, lima beans and fruits. El Señor de Sipan, small in size but strong and vigorous, was a notorious cook.

High dignitaries like him, as archeological findings say, ate products especially selected for them in the midst of spectacular wealth.

Hence, if we know unquestionably what products they fed these gentlemen; why not reconstruct a royal banquet?

César Alcorta, head chef at the Restaurant Las Brujas de Cachiche, came up with this brilliant idea in 1998. “What did El Señor de Sipan eat?” Alcorta asked Walter Alva one day while he was drinking a cup of coffee. “Let’s see, first what they didn’t eat,” answered the archeologist. This is how, appealing to archeological and ethno-historic tales, the two of them crated some dishes that were later served, with great pomp, at Las Brujas de Cachiche. César Alcorta, by the way, made some ‘gastronomic journeys’ up north to fully experience the subject.

The banquet was served: yellow and white potato causa stuffed with crab and lobster; llampallec with charqui (dehydrated meat with lima beans made with ají panca and chicha de jora); sole cebiche with ají limo in tumbo juice; guinea pig with garlic and chicha de jora, slowly cooked with peanuts in a ceramic pot; snails stewed with tomato and cilantro; beans with carob tree honey, flavored with the meat and broth of the sajino (wild pig); lobster, shrimps and prawns with wild herbs and squash locro; and lobster with loche. The only things missing were some guinea pig skewers and for the guests who feasted upon this wonderful menu to go consult the oracle.


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1 comments

Rosa Maria D. MacNeil says :
3-04-08,06:08:30

If people around the world would eat the above royal banquet on an every day basis, they would live a happier and healthier life!
We have the power to export our Peruvian cuisine wealth around the world, let's get to work

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