Local Dishes

1. Ch'arki

   Ch'arki (salted, sun-dried meat)

   Usage

   Llama, alpaca or mutton salted and dried in the high-altitude sun. Chewed as is, or shredded into soups (chupi) and lawa. Markets sell it by weight in slabs

   Grammar Note

   Ch'arki is meat salted and dried in the rays of the sun. It is the Cusco-Collao form of charki, glossed "dried meat, jerky (salty meat dried in the sun)" — the source of Spanish charque and English jerky. Dropping the ejective gives charki, an adjective meaning "thin, wretched, stingy"

2. Ch'uñu

   Ch'uñu (freeze-dried potato)

   Usage

   Potatoes frozen overnight, trodden underfoot to press out the water and sun-dried over several days — the black kind keeps for years. Rehydrated into stews and soups. The chewy texture and distinctive smell surprise first-timers

   Grammar Note

   Glossed "freeze-dried potato". Note the ejective: Ch'uñu is the correct spelling

3. Muraya

   Muraya (white chuño, "tunta")

   Usage

   Frozen potatoes steeped for weeks in running river water, then dried — the white chuño. More work and more expensive than the black kind, and reserved for festive dishes. On menus you will more often see the Aymara form "tunta"

   Grammar Note

   Muraya, or tunta from Aymara, is chuño steeped in the river and whitened, worth more than black chuño. Since "tunta" is an Aymara loan, the Quechua word here is Muraya

4. Pachamanka

   Pachamanka (meat and tubers baked in an earth oven)

   Usage

   A pit is dug, lined with fire-heated stones, layered with meat, potatoes, broad beans and humint'a, covered with earth and left for hours. A festival and family dish — you may be invited to watch it opened. It takes half a day to prepare, so order it a day ahead

   Grammar Note

   Pachamanka, or watya, is food cooked in a pot set in the earth. Watya is given as a synonym. "pacha" covers earth, world and time

5. Aycha kanka

   Aycha kanka (meat roasted over fire or coals)

   Usage

   The general word for meat roasted over flame or embers — beef, mutton, pork, rabbit, guinea pig. The easiest thing to point at in a market stall or street kitchen

   Grammar Note

   Kanka, or aycha kanka, is meat cooked over fire or embers, made from quwi, kunu (rabbit), uwiha (sheep), khuchi (pig) and waka (cow). It is glossed "roast, roasted meat"

6. Quwi kanka

   Quwi kanka (roast guinea pig)

   Usage

   A festive Andean dish, served whole with head and feet on — be ready for how it looks. Bony, with little meat, and two to three times the price of other meat dishes; some places need a day's notice

   Grammar Note

   Guinea-pig dishes ("Quwimanta mikhuna") include Quwi chupi, Quwi uchupi, Quwi kanka, Quwi chicharrusqa, Quwiwan pepián and Quwimanta pachamanka. Note: "Quwi, Saka icha Haka, kichwapi Kuy" — Kuy is the northern Kichwa form, while Quwi is the Cusco-Collao three-vowel spelling. "Cuy" is the Spanish spelling

7. Papa chupi

   Papa chupi (potato soup)

   Usage

   The bowl that turns up at breakfast and lunch all over the highlands, often with chuño or ch'arki in it. Above 3,000 m it is the easiest warming thing to order first

   Grammar Note

   Cooked from salted water, seeds or potato, and runnier than lawa; also called "Papa chupi". Modifier-before-head (papa chupi) is the ordinary Quechua noun-phrase order

8. Mut'i

   Mut'i (boiled maize kernels, "mote")

   Usage

   Large maize kernels simply boiled — served on their own or with a slab of fresh cheese. Around Cusco and the Urubamba valley the kernels are the size of a thumbnail

   Grammar Note

   Maize kernels boiled in water, or those of other grains. Glossed "mote, hominy". Keep the ejective t'

9. Hamk'a

   Hamk'a (toasted maize, "cancha")

   Usage

   Maize toasted in a flat clay pan until it pops. It arrives on the table instead of bread, alongside ceviche or soup, and is sold in bags by hawkers on long-distance buses

   Grammar Note

   Hamk'a (also Kamcha) is grains heated in a griddle or pot until they burst. Maize hamk'a is also called kankil. hamk'a is "toasted maize, grains, or legumes" and kamcha is "toasted corn". Spanish "cancha" comes from this kamcha

10. Chuqllu

    Chuqllu (fresh corn on the cob, "choclo")

    Usage

    Undried maize, boiled and eaten off the cob or served with a slab of white cheese as "choclo con queso" — the commonest roadside snack in the Sacred Valley and at the stations on the way to Machu Picchu

    Grammar Note

    Glossed "fresh corn (maize)". Sara (maize) is also called hara or hala in some regions, the most prized of grains. sara is the dried kernel; chuqllu is the fresh cob

11. Humint'a

    Humint'a (steamed corn dough in husks, "humita")

    Usage

    Ground maize dough wrapped in corn husks and steamed, in sweet and savoury versions, sometimes with cheese or raisins. Sold from steaming pots in the markets in the morning

    Grammar Note

    Humint'a is also called Lasti or Humita. Made with maize dough, sweetened, mixed with vegetable fat, cheese or raisins. "humita, a dish made with ground corn steamed in husks". Keep the ejective t'

12. Lawa

    Lawa (thick flour-based gruel)

    Usage

    A soup thickened with maize or broad-bean flour, far heavier than chupi. A staple midday dish in the cold highlands, and a meal in itself

    Grammar Note

    Thicker than chupi. Glossed "a gruel made flour, water, and salt; sometimes prepared with maize". chupi (thin) and lawa (thick) are defined against each other

13. Sankhu

    Sankhu (dough of grain flour and water)

    Usage

    Grain flour worked with water. It doubles as bread dough, is eaten as a paste in its own right, and is what fills a humint'a. The word turns up when you ask what something is made of

    Grammar Note

    Food mixed from grain flour and water, also used to make bread. Note: do not split the aspirate kh into k+h; Quechua aspirates are phonemic, as with mikhuna

14. Llaqwa

    Llaqwa (hot sauce of rocoto and tomato, "llajwa")

    Usage

    ⚠ Genuinely hot. A raw sauce of rocoto chillies and tomato ground on a stone (maray). In Bolivia it comes with almost every plate — say no in advance if you cannot take heat

    Grammar Note

    A sauce, or lawa, made from rocoto and tomato ground with a maray

15. Ruqutu

    Ruqutu (rocoto, a very hot thick-walled chilli)

    Usage

    ⚠ One of the hottest chillies in the Andes. Apple-shaped and thick-walled, fiercest around the seeds. It appears stuffed whole and as the base of llaqwa. Pointing at this word is the surest way to ask for a dish without it

    Grammar Note

    A kind of uchu grown in Bolivia and Peru, with very hot fruit used to season food. The superordinate uchu covers the Capsicum genus; ruqutu is one species of it, at a different level of heat

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