Foods That Are Impossible to Eat While Trying to Look Graceful in Front of Your Boyfriend’s Parents

Every few weeks, my boyfriend’s parents invite us over for lunch. I’m awkward by nature as it is, but when you sit a plate of food in front of me, my social ineptness is taken to new levels, especially because in this case, I’m desperately trying to win their approval with my charm and grace. That’s right, I’m such a lady, I think triumphantly as I successfully cut each piece of meat without scraping the plate, delicately place it into my mouth, and chew it with my lips fully closed.  

But there are some foods that are just impossible to eat while you’re trying to impress your boyfriend’s parents, and my potential future in-laws seem to have a knack for ordering them on the days when they invite me over. Call it paranoia, but they seem to take special pleasure in watching my discomfort as I try to cut and chew my way through the following plates:

Anticuchos

First course: grilled and marinated pieces of beef heart placed on a skewer. Need I say more? Perhaps. Trying to pry a piece of anticucho meat from a skewer with your knife is like trying to take off a pair of skinny jeans after Thanksgiving dinner. You yank and you pull, but that baby is just not coming off without some help. To add insult to injury, these pieces of anticucho meat were the most enormous I’ve ever seen, making them especially difficult to slide off the skewers in one swift movement. I tried cutting the meat in half while it was still on the skewer, I tried a two-pronged attack with my knife and fork, but those pieces of chewy cow’s meat just wouldn’t budge. One time I successfully tore a piece of meat from the skewer, only to have it go flying across the table and onto the crisp white tablecloth.

What is a girl to do when confronted with such impossible food? Observe the etiquette of those around her, I suppose. So I did. I noticed the men were all tearing the meat directly off the skewer with their teeth, but that seemed a little barbaric, so I looked to my boyfriend’s mother for a clue as to how to coax the meat off the skewer with a little dignity. But alas! She wasn’t eating anticuchos at all (something about cholesterol), so instead I found her delicately placing forkfuls of tiradito into her mouth. Go figure. 

Pollo a la brasa

Main entrée: pollo a la brasa and French fries. I should preface this section by saying that pollo a la brasa, or rotisserie-style chicken, is one of my very favorite Peruvian plates, and I’ve told my boyfriend’s family as much, so it was sweet of them to think of me when setting the lunch menu. That said, pollo a la brasa is an incredibly challenging dish to eat when you are trying to cast an irresistible ladylike charm on your potential future in-laws. There’s just something about carving little pieces of chicken away from the bone that makes you feel a little less charismatic and desirable, especially when it comes to my favorite part of the whole experience: slurping down the skin I saved especially so that its seasoned and crispy goodness can be the very last taste in my mouth.

Grapes (with seeds)

Dessert: after turning down ice cream, my boyfriend’s mom asked if I’d like some grapes. Thinking that grapes are much easier to eat than the appetizer and entrée I just mentioned, I enthusiastically agreed. But as soon as she sat the bowl down in front of me, I knew it was a mistake. For these, I quickly judged, were no ordinary grapes. These grapes were the size of golf balls, and I had the sneaking suspicion that they would have seeds in them. So with my boyfriend’s parents sitting across from me, the age-old question crossed my mind: spit or swallow?  

The former option, of course, would involve me trying to delicately reach into my mouth mid-chew, retrieve the tiny seed lodged on my tongue, and drop it back into the bowl before me. While I could have feasibly dabbed my lips with a napkin and spit the seed it into it or formed a fist over my lips and furrowed your eyebrows— as if lost in thought—when removing the seed, I think it’d become pretty obvious after a few grapes as to what I was really trying to do. Was it weirder to try to hide the obvious or to reach into my mouth candidly with no regard to ladylike etiquette? Both options made me anxious, so I decided to swallow the seeds instead. Of course, if my boyfriend’s parents were expecting to find a pile of seeds upon clean-up later, they would know that I had swallowed the seeds instead, thus leaving nothing behind. While that reality might be just as weird and awkward, I decided to accept it, since I wouldn’t have to be there for the big moment of truth. I just hope they don’t say anything about it the next time I visit…

photo credits: 1,2

Food for Thought

A few weeks ago, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala made the push for Unesco to add Peruvian cuisine to the World Heritage List.  The request comes as no surprise to Peruvians and tourists alike, who must put on their eating pants every time they leave the house: food is not only cheap, but hearty staples like rice, potatoes, and steak come in heaping portions.  Even more than that, each forkful you bite into here comes with the knowledge that you´re sharing in an evolution of taste, a gastronomy influenced by Andean, Spanish, Asian, and African products and flavors.  Here´s just an appetizer platter-sized summary of the Peruvian food revolution:

1.)     The potato

Spanish conquistadors supplied cattle and pigs, but potatoes claim Peru as their true homeland. The potato was first cultivated between 8,000 and 5,000 B.C., its adaptable nature making it one of the first successful crops to survive the stubborn Andean terrain.  The native Andean tribes carved giant terraces into the mountainsides to cultivate their food and developed irrigation systems to prevent erosion.

Flash forward to any Peruvian menú restaurant in 2011, where the spud serves as the accompaniment of choice to Peruvian plates like pollo a la brasa (rotisserie-style chicken) and lomo saltado (stir fry), or stands alone as an appetizer in the form of papa a la huancaína (boiled potato in a special sauce made of cheese, milk, and ají amarillo) or causa (mashed potato and chicken/tuna casserole).  Peru— the true innovator of the meat-and-potato diet.

2.)    The ají pepper
Used as a spread for sandwiches and a dipping sauce for French fries, ají sauce is the ketchup of Peruvian cuisine. This piquant little pepper is also used to make one of Peru´s staple dishes, ají de gallina, chicken served with rice and vegetables in a creamy yellow ají sauce.  The existence of the ají pepper in South America is thought to date back to at least 2,500 B.C., and is most popularly represented in the artwork of the Moche culture.

3.)    Ceviche
Ceviche´s origin is thought to reach back to the Inca Empire, during which time fermented corn and fruit (mainly tumbo) juices were used to make the dish.  The Spaniards offered up their limes and onions, while the Japanese immigrants brought ginger and their mastery fish preparation. Today, ceviche is Peru´s national dish and is popularly prepared with raw fish and fresh citrus juices.

4.)    Chifa
Wander through the streets of downtown Lima and you´ll eventually stumble across the red arch of el Barrio Chino, Chinatown.  Yet the influence of Chinese cooking cannot be contained within these few streets.  Chifa restaurants are almost as ubiquitous as combis in Peru, especially in Lima, where they can be found on almost every other block.  The term chifa itself is a uniquely Peruvian word used to describe the fusion between the countries´ two cuisines, largely caused by the need to adapt traditional Chinese dishes to include readily available Peruvian ingredients. 

5.)    Cuy
Disclaimer: If you grew up in a world where guinea pigs were pampered, fluffy pets named Domino or Buckwheat, this past post may not be for you.

Here in Peru, the cuy (guinea pig) is much more than a pet.  Domesticated as early as 5,000 B.C., guinea pigs were once considered a sacred animal by indigenous peoples.  They were believed to have healing powers and so were rubbed onto the body of diseased tribal members until they made a cooing noise to indicate the area of infection/sickness.  At that point, the cuy would be split open for the healer to examine the internal organs of the rodent and diagnose the disease.

Cuy entree at Jesus´ Last Supper, as depicted by Marcos Zapata

But what´s probably more difficult for English-speakers to swallow is the consumption of their domesticated pets at Peruvian dinner tables.  High in protein and low in fat and cholesterol, quick to reproduce and able to thrive in a wide range of environments, cuy holds a significant place in Peruvian diet, particularly for highlanders.  Even worse to picture—when cuy makes its way to the table, it comes bearing paws and all. 

For more on Peruvian food:
Glossary of Peruvian Cuisine
Pisco Trail