The cuisine of Cusco and Andean Peru

Andean cuisine maintains a strong relationship with Pachamama -mother earth in Quechua. Indeed, the essential highland dish is pachamanca, though it can't only be considered a dish.

Pachamanca, a Quechua term for "earth pot" or "when the earth transforms in pot", is a millenary ritual, generous and festive, usually reserved for religious and community festivities, such as the harvest thanksgiving.

Pachamanca consists in cooking several types of food -pork, chicken, cuy, potatoes, corn, etc- inside a hole in the ground, previously stuffed with incandescent stones and then covered with aromatic leaves. By eating directly from the earth's core, Andean cultures manifest their respect towards nature (or Pachamama), the source of fertility and life.

Carapulca, another millenary dish of Andean origin, is a peculiar pork and dry-potato stew, whose recipe includes chocolate, cumin, peanuts, port wine, and coriander. Boiled potatoes are the base of two of the most popular Andean appetizers, papa a la huancaína and ocopa. The former carries a cheese, milk and hot peppers sauce; the later, a sauce made with toasted peanuts, cheese, hot peppers, and huacatay (a native herb).