I have moved my blog to a more permanent location at chefwarnerstories.com. See you there!

Last Supper with Cuy, from Gastronomy Museum in Lima

 

Dear Readers,

 

 

Thank you for sharing my journey by following this blog and my Facebook posts. My travels to South America were transformational for me both professionally and personally. After this post I will transition to the library phase of my research. you will not hear from me for awhile, but at some point will return to this space with more images and musings. I hope to use the blog to report on food research over the next decade.

 

End of the story: Nouvelle Lima

 

My South American trip ended in Lima, Peru. My research has taught me that Lima currently is the hottest restaurant city in Latin America, or perhaps the Americas, perhaps even the world. Nueva Andina (New Andean) chefs are creating beautiful meals based on fusions of foods and cuisines from the earliest periods until the present. Their work merges Andean traditions with the world’s cuisines, also reflecting the four major demographic groups in Peru’s history: indigenous, African, European, and Asian (especially Chinese). As a result, Peruvian restaurants are popping up from Santiago to Paris.

 

The most famous chef in this movement is Gastón Acurio, who has sponsored a series of restaurants in Lima and elsewhere. Foremost among these is Astrid y Gastón. Naturally I wanted to exercise my credit card in this awesome restaurant. As it turns out, the earliest available reservation is in December!

Gaston Acurio

 

Fortunately, my travels have been filled with fantastic serendipitous moments. One of these occurred in a fine restaurant in Santiago, where I arrived without reservation and was sat at a table where other random travelers without reservation were eating. As a solo traveler I actually preferred this, meeting people from Denmark, France, Brasil and Mexico. I struck up a conversation with the couple from Mexico, who are from Cancun. (I was like, Mexican people actually live in Cancun?) As it turns out the husband is a longtime restaurateur, and former vice president of the national restaurant association. He was naturally quite interested in my project. As we hit it off, we discovered that we are both named “Ricardo,” and do all of the cooking in our households (much to the delight of our spouses, I believe).

 

Ricardo Sanchez and his wife had reservations for Astrid y Gastón! Their son is a bigwig in Wolfgang Puck’s organization so was able to get them in easily. Ricardo offered to get me a seat to join them since I was set to be in Lima at the same time! However, the reservation conflicted with a lecture that I was set to deliver at the Universidad de San Marcos. Damn! Ricardo kindly agreed to send me photos of his meal, which I post below here without comment:

 

 

Although I missed my chance at Astrid y Gastón, I did enjoy a stellar meal at another of his restaurants in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima where I was staying, named Panchitas. Piso sour, cabrito (goat), and one more ceviche:

 

       

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

New Andean cuisine in Lima is the end of the story that I hope to write about Latin American cuisines. The movement is a culinary bookend in our globalized world, which is conscious of the many passages in the Latin American past. Ordinary people, especially women, have played key roles in this story. I hope that I can uncover many aspects of this people’s history of Latin American cuisine. Stay tuned.

 

Home Again in Indiana

 

I’m headed home as I write this post. Emotions and thoughts dance through me delightfully. This has been a fantastic adventure, but I am happy to go home to my wife Kerri and my BFF Maggie. Thank you again for sharing this journey with me. I promise that I will now work harder on this research project, so that I can share more stories about the delicious history of Latin American food and fellowship. Until later, ¡buen provecho!