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FORK PLAY 58 August 26, 2009
Discovering Peru. Listen to the Knees. Haute Afloat. Pigging Out.
Dear Friends and Family,
For years the Road Food Warrior and
I had Machu Picchu near the top of our travel list. But the pull of
 irresistible Venice and Paris, Vietnam, Angkor Wat and Istanbul, the
dream of seeing Japan and Buenos Aires at least once kept pushing it
off to some future date. Now we've been there. We had a passionate
guide in Yashira, assigned to us by our host, the sprawling eco-infatuated
Inkaterra Lodge, at the base of the mythic city. Given the current state
of my knees, I had fully expected to stand somewhere and gaze up.
I hoped for the kind of intoxication I found in the tranquility and
shock of Angkor Wat just from looking.
But while Steven was scrambling about
shooting pictures - trying to get a vista without too many trekkers
huffing and burning, hatless and obviously un-sunblocked - Yashira actually
got me to climb the uneven stone steps - and. even tougher on Jane
Fonda aerobic-traumatized  knees, to descend. I got to step into
the King's bedroom (no, not that King, the Inca King who supposedly
summered here). The intricacy of interlocking stone blocks, huge and
heavy boulders, trapezoid openings and the canny placement of the stone
lintel are the secrets of the lost city surviving a series of earthquakes.
I know now we should have gone twenty
years ago. Our day pretending to be mountain goats followed by an amazingly
sophisticated and delicious lunch in the dining room of the Orient Express's
Hotel Sanctuario took so much out of us that we slept through Inkaterra's
orchid trail, butterfly walk and bird watching tour.
Listen to me, dear friends, go before
your knees sabotage your eternal youth.
***
The Deliberate Tourist
I'm not sure how it happened but I
knew we needed more than the usual Machu PicChu-focused tourist's
one  day in Lima, one day in Cuzco. Gourmands I talked to said there
was a big dining breakthrough in Peru not unlike our own, with young
chefs going local, gentrifying jungle products. Worried about the extremes
of altitude and mosquito attacks, especially after my doctor prescribed
seven different prescriptions for various travelers' ills I'd never
thought of, I decided the two of us would start slowly, unwinding from
Manhattamania on the Amazon and stretch out our Peru trip to two weeks.
The brochure for Aqua Expeditions floating luxury won me over even though
we normally ditch the city in August to escape tropical heat.
Lima's "winter" is cool but it can sizzle in the tropics. "Air
conditioning" and "experiencing the world as it was at the beginning
of time" accompanied by fine wines, cinched the deal. But then
the bandits struck. To read more about what we did and what we
ate, click here for "Posh on the Amazon".
***
To Pig Out or Not to Pig Out?
Veterans of Peru culture seemed eager
to know if I planned to eat guinea pig, a special passion in the Andes.
I toyed with the idea, remembering those little rat-like  caged creatures
I'd seen in homes of friends indulging their offspring with something
less demanding than a dog. On our way to Machu Picchu, exploring the
Sacred Valley, we were invited to a village home. Between the
stove and the bed and the handicraft shop, more than two dozen fat furry
animals scuttled around. From guinea pig on the floor to cuy on the
plate in the elegant upscale Map Café
in Cuzco was not a big leap. How did it taste? Read more
on the Guinea Pig challenge by clicking here. And for
a collection of Steven Richter's photographs in an archive of Twitterings from Peru, click here.
***
Rainforest Imports
Chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino went off
to Italy for several years after his stint at the CIA in Hyde Park.
He  came home to Lima determined to bring rainforest products to the
city. His parents backed him and his father's eclectic collections
- Venetian glass, African art, contemporary paintings - fill the
Malabar, his restaurant in Lima. As a consultant to Aqua he works
with constraints, dependent on local markets, designing food to satisfy
varying tastes, not a lot of variety in fish, chickens are really free
range and chewier for it. The mix of Aqua passengers may not be
adventurous enough to eat a thigh. Still, the handsome breakfast
and lunch buffets were both exotic and familiar and I recall some triumphs
at dinner: cured salmon filled with a delicate local pepper mousse and
crème fraîche,
chocolate shells enclosing breadfruit cream, and every night, a tropical
fruit granité before dessert.
But our dinner at Malabar was dazzling,
delicious and elegant - original but smartly restrained and full of
flavor. I'd begun to think Peru could only produce cottony soft  bread,
but as an opening gambit, a collection of several different flavors
of crusty bread arrived with big fat olives, an assortment of nuts,
new and familiar (cooked in sacha ichi oil of the Amazon) and Twiggy-thin
breadsticks to dip into rocoto pepper sauce only slightly tamed with
olive oil. There was cheese from Cuzco blended to soften it. And a tataki
of rockfish, cooked with lemon, powdered pork skin sprinkled on top
and a swirl of green leek sauce around the plate. River shrimp came
with peas and mushrooms on a sauce made with their coral. Then
crisp-skin sea bass (a little too cooked for me) beside a risotto made
with scallops from the north (allegedly aphrodisiacal) and spaghetti
with pigeon and foie gras. I liked his signature so much I found
myself telling the chef he was too good for that tasteless Parmesan
foam. Then came a perfect meeting of crackle and voluptuous flesh in
suckling pig on smoked eggplant-and-plantain purée.
Pedro Miguel seemed genuinely thrilled
that cherimoya was in season and we could eat it three ways. A local
star at 31, he has a charming openness and even innocence. Yesterday
I got an email bursting with enthusiasm for new jungle edibles he had
just discovered. To reserve at Malabar, call 011 511 440 5200).
***
Another 31-year-old star is cooking
at Cala overlooking the surf and the beach in Lima. I'm
not sure I'm as  thrilled with the tortured creativity at the city's
newest rage, Central, as local gourmands are, but that's another
story. I'll be writing more about restaurant discoveries in Lima.
We ate well in Cuzco too. I'm hoping to post my favorite addresses,
where to eat and stay, and who should be your guide later in my Travel
corner on my web site. How soon? It's hard to say, I'm
so busy catching up on what's new in New York. Peru is proud of its
corn but there is nothing like our sweet local corn. And of course,
I needed my tuna fish fix first night home.
***
| Photos of Machu Picchu, Inkaterra, the boat Aqua, guinea pigs al horno, Malabar's pasta with Parmesan foam and chef
Pedro Miguel, and Cala's egg may not be used without permission from Steven Richter. |
Fork Play copyright Gael Greene 2009.
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