Living in Peru : your everyday companion

LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

"Years ago we thought that cooking was a way to find of economic opportunities; today we have gone further and we see food as a provider of opportunities for those who have never had them, and for those who have been historically neglected," said the Peruvian cook Gaston Acurio during the gastronomic fair “Mistura 2009.”

Acurio explains that the first aim of the fair is to celebrate our food and to showcase it to the world; but another important goal, the most important, is “to teach the people that Peruvian cuisine can be an inclusive space, a place for integration in every sense of the word: for democratization, seeking to share and to create opportunities for people such as farmers and artisan producers,” Acurio says.

“It's a matter of ethics. If the fisherman can't educate his children, then the ceviche made with the fish he provided will no longer be beautiful,” he remarked.

According to Mariano Valderrama, Executive Vice President of the Chef's Association, the next steps are to strengthen regional cuisines and to work in education, because although there are many cooking schools, all of them are private, and there's not a public one.

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