Mystic Asia - China
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The Art of Peruvian Cuisine,
By the Foundation Felipe
Antonio Custer | Nevertheless, no one could have predicted that the most dramatic impact on Peruvian food in the 19th and 20th centuries was to come from the other side of the earth. A whole new world of flavors and spices was about to burst onto the Peruvian palate with the arrival in 1849 of the first Chinese indentured servants who came to work on the railroad, on coastal sugar and cotton plantations and in the booming guano industry.
The Chinese immigrants who survived the grueling and dangerous 120-day trip from Macau often lived and worked under appalling conditions. Life for the 'coolies' didn't improve much after the official abolition of slavery in 1854. But their contracts as indentured servants, though harsh, did include an obligation on the part of the contractor to provide certain foods.
A fixed daily quantity of 1.5 pounds of rice was provided as part of their salary and in their specially constructed living quarters, far from their own land, the Chinese workers maintained their culinary traditions along with their cultural identity.
Chinese immigrants imported seeds for vegetables, from snow peas to ginger, that were essential to the Cantonese diet. They introduced soy sauce. Eventually, as they worked off their indentures and settled in the coastal cities, they set up countless small eating establishments. Once again Peruvian cooking blossomed with the discovery of new flavors.
There was initial distrust of these foreigners who 'cooked anything that moved', but Limeņos soon began to appreciate the new simple and tasty food appearing in the narrow streets near the downtown central market which today are Lima's bustling Chinatown. To this day, lomo saltado is not only a classic Peruvian dish but a typical Sino-Peruvian fusion. The Chinese stir-frying techniques brought over in the last half of the 19th century put Peruvian ají into the same pan with ginger and soy sauce for the first time. Modern Peruvians still know most Chinese dishes and ingredients by either their Cantonese name or a hispanicized version of these that has evolved over 150 years.
It is a testament to the impact of Chinese cooking on Peruvian palates that within fifty years of the first immigrant's arrival in the country nearly every one of Lima's wealthy and fashionable families had a Chinese cook. The culture and culinary traditions of Chinatown evolved and adapted and more sophisticated restaurants or chifas appeared all over the capital.
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