Peruvian Fusion: Salsa Dancing

One of the things that many foreign visitors to Cusco try is Salsa dancing. There seems to be dozens of Salsa Dance schools and clubs (Mythology, Mama Africa, Kamikase, Roots, etc) clustered around the Plaza de Armas.

Early on when our family was taking Spanish lessons at the Amauta Spanish Language school, we would take their free Dance lessons on Friday nights. My wife and I and our kids would swirl around doing doble enchufles with twenty-something backpackers, while the instructor barked out the rhythm “uno, dos, tres…cinco, seis, siete.” After a few weeks, we started to get pretty good and started to accent our twists and swirls with a little Latino swagger. For us this was great entertainment and exercise and, as the rest of the backpackers headed out to the clubs for more, we’d go out for dinner and then head home to our apartment.

It seems that almost everywhere you go in Latin America, there is Salsa dancing. Salsa dancing originated in Cuba, where the Spanish guitar and the African drum collided to form unique rhythms in the New World. Salsa -- also a word for a sauce with various ingredients -- became popular as nickname to refer to a variety of different music, from several countries of Hispanic influence: Rhumba, Són Montuno, Guaracha, Mambo, Cha cha cha, Danzón, Són, Guguanco, Cubop, Guajira, Charanga, Cumbia, Plena, Bomba, Festejo, Merengue, among others. Many of these have maintained their individuality and many were mixed creating "Salsa".

The more we think about life in Peru – as well as the rest of Latin America -- the more we realize how the fusion of three continents (Europe, South America, Africa) touches almost every aspect of Peruvian life.

Peruvian Fusion: Doña Pepa

Doña Pepa

During our first few weeks in Cusco, my daughter took Spanish lessons at a school just off the Plaza de Armas. Quite often Patty, her teacher, would take her on walks around the city to learn Spanish through the other senses instead of only her eyes and ears in the classroom. Quite often they’d stop at a small kiosk off the plaza and buy a Doña Pepa candy bar and soon this became a ritual on their daily walks. When my daughter offered me one, I looked askance at the packaged candy covered with sprinkles and said “no thanks.” It was only later that we learned about Doña Pepa and her story.

According to legend, an Afro-Peruvian slave named Josefa Maraminillo lived in the Cañete Valley, south of the Peruvian capital of Lima and went by the name of Doña Pepa. Doña Pepa could not work because of paralysis in her arms so she prayed to the Señor de los Milagros (“Lord of the Miracles”) and traveled to Lima to view that saint's image to supplement her prayers. Allegedly, Doña Pepa was cured of paralysis on the first day of the Señor de los Milagros procession. That night she had a dream that a saint gave her a recipe for a cake. She baked the cake the following day and brought it as an offering to the procession. Since that time Doña Pepa cakes are traditionally eaten each October during the Señor de los Milagros procession.



The cake is also called a Turrón de Doña Pepa, but is different from the Spanish turrón in that it does not contain nougat. The traditional cake is flavored with anise and cane sugar and decorated with sprinkles. The candy bar that my daughter enjoys is basically a two-layered cookie covered in chocolate and dipped in sprinkles, but the wrapper bears the image of Doña Pepa. Sometimes you learn about a country’s culture from the unlikeliest sources. The one sol coin that I gave my daughter each day for her Doña Pepa has turned out to be a good investment.

Doña Pepa candy bar (courtesy of iheartcandy.com)

Peruvian Fusion: Andean Good Luck Charm

If you walk through towns in the Andean region around Cusco one of the things you’ll see on many rooftops is a pair of ceramic bulls. It’s said that these bulls bring good luck, keep the house safe and ensure health and wealth for the family that lives there. We’ve seen the bulls all over Cusco and in towns like Pisac, Chinchero and Ollantaytambo.

The bulls come from Pucara, an area between Cusco and Puno, and are called toritos de Pucara. These figurines were originally made as ritual elements of a cattle-branding ceremony. The bull figure, which is also a flask, was used to hold the chicha (fermented corn beer) and mixed with the blood of cattle and drunk by the high priest conducting the ceremony. The bulls are always placed on the roof so that they have a view of the apus, the mountains gods revered by the Incas. Given that Spaniards brought over cattle to the New World, it’s safe to say this ceremony and the toritos are not Pre-Inca and yet another example of New World culture fusing with the Old World.

While two bulls on a roof are pretty consistent, what accompanies them varies quite a bit. Often there is a cross and occasionally a ladder, which will help the family members get to heaven. At various times I’ve seen Peruvian flags, doves, horseshoes, parrots, roosters and even shovels accompanying the bulls.

Towards the end of our stay in Cusco my wife hunted for a pair of these bulls to bring back home and put on the roof our house back home in California, but our search turned up empty. We now have a good reason to come back.

Peruvian Fusion: Día de Los Muertos

We knew that the Día de Los Muertos (Day of The Dead) was a big holiday in Mexico, but we weren’t sure to what extent it was celebrated here in Peru. When I asked people at my office, they talked about tantawawa (breads shaped in the figures of babies and horses) and lechon (roast suckling pig) but when I asked about visiting a cemetery, I was told that there was not much to see and the gatherings were private.

Like most Pre-Columbian cultures, the Incas were an agricultural society that worshipped their ancestors. In the northern hemisphere, Day of the Dead festivities focus on sharing the harvest with dead ancestors; south of the equator, early November is a time of returning spring rains, the re-flowering of the earth and the anticipation of the harvest season. As such, the start of the very important planting season is celebrated and shared with ancestors. When the Spaniards arrived, they found a way to fuse these pre-Columbian traditions with All Saints Day (Día de Todos Santos) on November 1st and All Souls Day on November 2nd. In Peru, November 1st is celebrated nationally, but in Cuzco it’s known as Día de Todos los Santos Vivos (Day of the Living Saints) and celebrated with food such as lechon, sugar cane, chicha and the tantawawa breads. November 2nd is considered the Día de los Santos Difuntos (Day of the Deceased Saints) and is honored with visits to cemeteries.

We went to Plaza Tupac Amaru on Día de Todos los Santos Vivos hoping to see displays of baby and horse breads and to try some lechon. On the way out the door of our apartment, our landlords had a whole suckling pig laid out on a table in the middle of their enclosed courtyard, ready to be roasted. At Plaza Tupac Amaru, we passed by bread vendors selling tantawawas on our way to a corner of the plaza with many makeshift food stalls. We walked to through until we found some selling lechon. We ordered two plates for the four of us and found a quiet corner to sit down and eat. The lechon was delicious: tender, moist suckling pig with a robust smoky flavor, laid on a bed of tallarines (noodles), with rocoto rellena (stuffed pepper) and a potato. We order two more plates and my son devoured another very large portion of lechon in about 20 seconds.

Despite being downplayed by my co-workers, on Día de Los Muertos we walked across town to the Almudena Cemetery in the late afternoon. We bought some flowers and offerings in the plaza next to the cemetery and walked through the massive stone gate. Inside there was more than a thousand people gathering about their ancestors’ wall niches. In South America, when a person dies they are buried in a casket for 10 years, before being dug up and cremated, and the ashes are placed into a wall of the cemetery. For those who are wealthy, the ashes go into little stand-alone marble houses that are large enough to accommodate the entire family. The wall niches at Almudena were interesting little dioramas of the deceased one’s life. Inside framed glass enclosures were symbols of the lives that the people led: dinner tables with large feasts, large beer and pisco bottles, automobiles, flowers, dolls, photos, religious statuettes…each 2-foot by 1.5-foot space selectively representing a life. The mood was festive with dancing, drinking and singing, but I got the sense that worshippers were pacing themselves. I’d heard that many would stay at the cemetery all night to greet the dawn with their dead ancestors. There were several bands playing upbeat music and I saw quite a few people who looked like they were halfway between crying and laughing. We found a quiet corner of the cemetery to hold a small service for a relative of ours who had died recently. We laid our flowers on an anonymous marble crypt and each of us talked about what our deceased aunt meant to us. It seemed a very appropriate place to remember her.

Peruvian Fusion: Anticuchos

Peruvian food is one of the world’s great fusion cuisines, incorporating influences from the Andes and coastal Peru with Spanish, African, Chinese and Japanese flavors. One example of this is anticuchos, beef kebabs that are grilled and sold on many a Peruvian street corner. While skewered llama meat has been around in the Andes since Pre-Columbian times, it was African slaves in Colonial Peru who perfected the marinated and skewered beef heart kebabs that are so popular today.

During colonial times, the Spanish would give their African slaves the parts of the cow that they disdained: heart, stomach, organs, etc. The slaves took the beef heart and seasoned and marinated it heavily prior to grilling and over time the dish became very popular in Peru. Basically, the cow heart is cut into portions that easily fit onto a skewer and are heavily seasoned with ají panca, a full flavored but mild red chili and marinated in vinegar and spices (such as cumin, aji pepper and garlic). The meat is marinated for a day or two before grilling over charcoal, then the skewers are usually served with a boiled potato and a spicy dipping sauce. Anticucho comes from the Quechua word antikucho, meaning 'Andean cut' or 'Andean mix'.

Up until recently my experience with anticuchos was primarily through my nose. As I’d routinely drop the kids off for swimming at the Wanchaq pool, I’d walk over to the supermercado to do the food shopping. Just outside the pool, a woman sets up a tiny grill on a rickety stand tucked into a corner and the smell and smoke of grilled meat usually invades my nostrils as I pass by. Turning the corner and heading up Calle La Infancia, I always pass a small anticucheria that sets up their grill at the front door and a fan blows the smoke towards the street. After reading a bit about the Afro-Peruvian origins of anticuchos and getting a recommendation from a co-worker, I went to anticucheria called El Condorito on Calle Tacna. Inside the smoky restaurant, families sat at benches and devoured the skewers while drinking chicha morada or cerveza. I ordered a plate of anticuchos and sat down. I’d love to tell you how much I enjoyed them but I can't. While some people sing the praises of the “best-textured muscle in a cow’s body” and the delicious seasoning, I found myself wishing my anticuchos were made from a regular cut of beef.

Peruvian food in general is a combination of many influences. The Incas grew hundreds of variety of potatoes, corn, quinoa, barley and chili peppers, with cuy (guinea pig) and llama being the main sources of protein. The coastal Incas loved their ceviche, shellfish and various types of seafood. The Spanish added chickens, cows, pigs and goats to the mix, providing more meat and protein into the Andean diet. Africans came and added yams and peanuts, along with new dishes like anticuchos, tacu tacu (beans and rice with aji amarilla) and Cau-Cau (seasoned tripe). The Chinese came to build railroads and brought soy sauce and fresh ginger as well as stir-fry cooking, creating a blend of cuisines known in Peru today as chifa. The Japanese, who arrived in the early 1900’s to work on the sugar and cotton plantations, brought their love of seafood and their techniques for simple and beautiful preparations and opened cevicherias and shaped nikkei, or second-generation Japanese cuisine.

While I can’t in good conscience recommend the marinated cow heart, you can substitute regular beef cuts if you want to try anticuchos. Here is a recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 Beef heart or 2 lb of beef rump steak
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 3 to 4 cloves of crushed garlic
• ½ cup of red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large chili peppers, finely chopped without seeds
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin

Preparation:

Firstly make sure the heart is clean of all veins and fat. Cut the heart or rump steak in small 3 to 4cm (1 to 1½ in) cubes. In a large bowl mix the vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, crushed garlic, chili pepper and ground cumin. Add the heart cubes and let the heart marinate for several hours or overnight. If you are using rump steak you do not need to marinate the meat for as long. Remove the meat cubes, lightly salt them and put 3 pieces onto each metal skewer. Cook over a hot grill for approximately 3 minutes per side, brushing them with the vinegar mix. Serve immediately with steamed corn on the cob and boiled potatoes.

This post was part of a Lonely Planet Blogsherpa Carnival at Kat's Tie Dye Travels, called Food Around the World.

Peruvian Fusion: Corpus Christi

Prior to the Spanish conquest, the Quechua people celebrated a fruitful harvest by honoring the Father Sun ("Tayta Inti”) in the presence of his “children”, the mummified remains of the Inca kings (“mallki”). The mummies were adorned in fine clothing and jewelry and were paraded about the main plaza in lavishly decorated litters, while the Quechua people gathered and celebrated with traditional Andean foods. When Francisco Pizzaro arrived in Cusco in 1533, I can only imagine the reaction of the priests in his conquering party: “Hmmm…pagan deities, mummies…this will have to go.”

As a replacement ceremony, the Spanish priests instituted the feast and procession of Corpus Christi ("Body of Christ") in Cusco and virgins and saints were paraded around the main plaza in place of mummies (which were burned) and the Tayta Inti and the Pachamama (mother earth) were put on the back burner in favor of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. Since the feast and procession of Corpus Christi was coincidently held each year around the same time as a southern hemisphere harvest (May/June), it was a logical substitution. The Inca chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega observed that the first Corpus Christi was held in Cusco in 1550, perhaps as early as 1547. In 1572 the Viceroy Francisco de Toledo instituted Corpus Christi in all Peruvian provinces.

This past June, more than 450 years later, my daughter and I ventured to the Plaza de Armas and obtained second-story balcony seats at a corner restaurant and ordered lunch shortly before noon. We were there to watch the entrada (the entrance of the saints) without getting mobbed by the crowd below. The first saint was San Antonio from the San Cristobal parish, who slowly moved past us with his beard, staff and light blue robe embroidered with silver. He is the patron saint of swineherds and was single; as such only young unmarried men hold up his litter. Next up was San Geronimo from the parish of the same name, dressed in a broad red hat and robe and holding a pen in his right hand and a silver model of a chapel in his left hand. More saints continued: San Cristobal held the Christ child while standing under a palm tree, San Sebastian shaded by a tree with arrows in his chest and the easily-identifiable Santiago charging forward on his white horse with sword in hand. Once we’d finished our unappetizing lunch, we’d wished instead that we eaten what most of the Cusquenas were eating. Everyone was eating chiriuchu (roasted guinea pig with toasted corn and potatoes) washed down with either beer or chicha.

During the entrada a total of 15 saints and virgins parade around the plaza, after having been carried by a couple dozen men from their respective parishes. The statues are left in the cathedral for 8 days at which time they depart and head home. The highlight of the entrada is the impressive silver “Carroza” carriage that is paraded around the Plaza de Armas midway through the entrada. It contains the bread – the symbolic body of Christ – and is topped by a chalice decorated with the image of the Holy Sacrament. As the centerpiece of the entrada, it effectively replaced the ruling Inca’s litter from Pre-Columbian times.

An interesting thing to note about Corpus Christi is that over 750 years ago the festival was started as a way to re-consolidate religious belief and reinvigorate Catholics in Europe. Corpus Christi officially celebrates the belief that the Eucharistic bread contains the real presence of Christ. By the 13th century, religious belief was becoming diffused by the older cult of the saints. The numberous saints with their relics and the dismembered parts of holy men and women (skeletons, locks of hair, toes, etc.) were more tangible symbols of faith and served to keep religious focus decentralized. By re-focusing belief onto the Eucharist with a formal religious ceremony – controlled by priests – the Catholic Church was able to re-consolidate their power over the populace. If it worked in Europe, why not in the New World?

Peruvian Fusion: Eva Ayllón at the Teatro Municipal

As our taxi rushed through the Cusco streets Friday night, on our way to the Eva Ayllón concert, we had reason to believe that the event might be lightly attended. Our tickets cost 70 soles ($24), an amount that caused most of my co-workers to decide not to a see the “Queen of Afro-Peruvian Soul.” The fact that it was so easy for me to get front-row, center stage tickets gave me another reason to suspect a low turnout. Arriving late from our kid’s swim meet, our taxi dropped us off and instantly knew we’d been mistaken: we walked into a packed and energetic Teatro Municipal.

Eva Ayllón is Peru’s most celebrated musical artist and is recognized worldwide as a leading exponent of música criolla (Creole music) and Afro-Peruvian music. Música criolla is a fusion of mainly African, Spanish and Andean influences and Afro-Peruvian music was first created by African slaves in Peru during the Colonial Period. She has 4 platinum records, 10 gold records, and two Latin Grammy nominations for “Eva” Leyenda Peruana” and "To My Country," an album she recorded with Los Hijos del Sol and Alex Acuña. Afro-Peruvian music has its roots in the communities of black slaves brought to work in the silver mines along the Peruvian coast and in the Andes. The music was little known even in Peru until the 1950s, when it was popularized by the seminal performer Nicomedes Santa Cruz. One of the high notes of Ayllón’s 30-year musical career was selling out Carnegie Hall in November of 2008.

On Friday night Ayllón came out on stage in a super-tight, black stretch outfit, high heels and a Christian cross necklace supported by Amazonian hauyruro beads. As she sang her first few songs we began to see why the Los Angeles Times described her as “The Tina Turner of Afro-Peruvian music, energetic and playful, sexy and fully charged.” Friday night’s concert was a tribute to Chabuca Granda, a performer known for Afro-Peruvian inteerpretations late in her career, and the audience sang along to popular Granda songs such as “Jose Antonio” and “Fina Estampa.”

As we sat and listened to the toe-tapping Afro-Peruvian beats, I meditated on the origins of the two principal instruments accompanying Ayllón’s vocals: the guitar and the cajón (box drum). I knew a little about the guitar’s Latin and Moorish origins and I’d heard that the cajón, a rectangular wooden box that doubles as percussion instrument and a seat, came from African slaves using agricultural crates in Colonial Peru. The guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of Spain in the 8th century. The prevailing view about the origins of the cajón, while similar to instruments in Africa and Spain, is that indeed they were adapted by Peruvian slaves from the colonial Spanish shipping crates. Slaves used boxes as musical instruments to contravene colonial bans on music in predominantly African areas. Thus, cajóns could easily be disguised as seats and avoid identification as musical instruments.

The instruments, the singer and the music were all beautiful examples of the Peruvian fusion between Andean, Spanish and African cultures. The Peruvian writer Ricardo Palma wrote, “If you are not Inca, you are Mandinga,” reinforcing the idea that all Peruvians have indigenous blood, African blood, or both. While Afro-Peruvian music has been around for hundreds of years, for the past 30 years Eva Ayllón has helped Peruvians accept and embrace that heritage.

Peruvian Fusion: The Cusco School of Painting

Fusion is everywhere in Peru. Every place you look you can see the collision between Andean and Spanish cultures. It’s in the blood, in the food, in the music, in the language and it’s in the paintings. We got an introduction to the Cusco School of painting last week when we bought a ticket gaining entrance to three churches and a museum: La Catedral, La Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus, Iglesia de San Blas and the Museo de Arte Religioso.

Our first stop was La Catedral on the Plaza de Armas. Construction of the church started in 1559 (aided by many large stones pilfered from the nearby Sacsayhuaman fortress) and had to be re-built after the massive 1650 earthquake. In the northeast corner of the cathedral we saw the epitome of this Andean/Spanish clash of cultures in Marcos Zapata’s rendition of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” (left). What better way for an Andean painter to accept a forced-upon religion, yet still be true to his indigenous roots, than to place cuy (guinea pig) on a platter in the center of the table? It’s open to debate what the main course was for The Last Supper (grilled eel? lamb?), but I’m certain that Leonardo didn’t depict guinea pig and chicha morada (fermented purple-corn drink).

The Cusco School of Painting is a Roman Catholic artistic tradition based in Cusco, Peru during the colonial period. The tradition originated after the Spanish conquest of the Incas and is considered the first artistic center that systematically taught European Artistic techniques in the Andes. The main purpose of the school was didactic, to inculcate catholic religious values and almost all of the painters were indigenous. Ironically, the school got a boost after the 1650 earthquake destroyed most of the churches and artwork and Cusco School artists were commissioned to paint hundreds of new paintings to adorn the walls of the new structures that were being built.

Across the plaza from La Catedral is La Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus, which was built in 1571 (also rebuilt after the 1650 earthquake) on top of the former palace of Huayna Capac, the last Inca to rule an undivided empire. Our guidebook directed us to some paintings of catholic weddings near the entrance, where we found The Marriage of Captain Martin de Loyola to Beatriz Ñusta. In the background of this painting of a Catholic ceremony are indigenous Incas, one with an Amazonian parrot on his shoulder. It was not uncommon for Cusco School painters to use Andean flora and fauna in their paintings of religious topics.

After a quick tour of the modest Iglesia San Blas and its intricately-carved wood pulpit, we debated whether we should visit the Museo de Arte Religioso, even though it was included in our ticket. Our guidebook gave a ho-hum description of the museum and even referred to it as a “musty religious art collection.” For us, the museum turned out to be the best in Cusco, with excellent audioguide-descriptions of various Virgin Marys, warrior angels, Corpus Christi processions and Diego Quispe Tito’s zodiac paintings.

For us, the depictions of the virgens were the most interesting. Most of the Virgin Marys, like the Virgen de Belen to the left, were fairly “flat” and lacked perspective, which would be expected from a culture new to representative painting. The Pre-Columbian Andeans had superior skills in ceramics, architecture, gold and silver work as well as textiles, but painting oil on canvas was a foreign concept. Many of the Virgin Marys, along with baby Jesuses they held, were triangular in shape, suggesting the shape of apus, or sacred mountains. It’s almost as if the Virgin Mary put on a couple hundred pounds once she set foot in the New World. Making the shape of the virgin’s dress suggest the mountains that the Incas revered made acceptance of the new religion easier. In their depictions, the virgens quite often have ruddy cheeks, suggesting the cold mountain weather of the Andes, and there is always lots of detail in their dresses which is not surprising given an Andean culture obsessed with textiles and weaving. Lastly, most of the paintings in the Cusco school (with some notable exceptions: Marcus Zapata, Diego Quispe Tito, etc.) were anonymous, due to the Pre-Columbian traditions that defined art as communal.

Immediately after leaving the museum, inspired by my exposure to the Cusco School, I went on a search for a reproduction Virgin Mary painting, stopping in various shops in San Blas. There is something very noble and appealing to me about how indigenous cultures, when forced to accept a foreign religion, find subtle -- in some cases, not so subtle -- ways to express their defiance. I looked in several shops, but had difficulty finding one that had a wide enough triangular shape. Each one shown to me by a shopkeeper was turned down with the words “No es bastante gorda” (“Not fat enough”). My wife and I resumed the search a few days later and we finally found a perfectly rotund Virgen de la Merced, complete with slightly-ruddy cheeks and resplendent dress detail.