What do people eat in Peru?
In Peru lunch is the main meal, and on the coast that often means ceviche, raw fish cured in lime juice. Rice and potatoes come with almost everything, and Chinese and Japanese influences sit beside Andean and Spanish ones.
Typical dishes and their calories
Breakfast
On a weekend in Lima breakfast is often pan con chicharrón, a roll with fried pork, sweet potato and salsa criolla, red onion with lime. On weekdays it is bread with cheese or avocado and coffee, or a tamal wrapped in a banana leaf. Early in the morning street carts sell emoliente, a warm drink of barley, flaxseed and herbs.
Lunch
Lunch, between 13:00 and 15:00, is the big meal. Offices empty into small restaurants for el menú, a set lunch of a soup or starter, a main and a jug of chicha. Typical mains are lomo saltado, beef stir fried with onion, tomato and fries, served with rice, and ají de gallina, chicken in a creamy yellow chili sauce.
Dinner
Dinner is lighter and later, around 20:00, often a sandwich, soup or the leftovers from lunch. The big exception is pollo a la brasa, chicken roasted on a spit over charcoal and eaten with fries, salad and spicy sauces. A quarter chicken without the fries is about 350 kcal, and families often order a whole one to share.
Starters
Causa is mashed yellow potato seasoned with lime and ají amarillo, layered with chicken or tuna and served cold. Papa a la huancaína is boiled potato under a spicy cheese sauce with egg and olives. In a cevichería people often start with a small glass of leche de tigre, the citrus marinade of the ceviche.
Desserts
Picarones are rings of fried dough made with squash and sweet potato, served hot with chancaca syrup. Suspiro a la limeña is a creamy dulce de leche base under a port wine meringue. Mazamorra morada, a purple corn pudding with dried fruit, is often eaten with arroz con leche in the same cup.
Drinks
Inca Kola, a yellow soda that tastes of lemon verbena, is drunk with lunch and outsells Coca Cola in Peru. Chicha morada is a sweet drink of purple corn boiled with pineapple, cinnamon and cloves. Pisco sour, made of grape brandy, lime, sugar and egg white, is the national cocktail.
Street food
After dark Lima smells of anticuchos, slices of beef heart marinated in ají panca and vinegar and grilled on skewers, sold with a boiled potato. Carts sell salchipapas, sliced hot dogs fried with chips, and picarones fried to order. In the morning the same corners have emoliente carts.
Normal there, odd elsewhere
Ceviche is a lunch dish, and many cevicherías close in the afternoon, because the fish should be from that morning. Chinese Peruvian restaurants, called chifas, are all over Lima, and rice with fries on one plate is normal. In the Andes cuy, guinea pig, is a dish for festivals and family celebrations.