Street Food of the World: Peru's super street food - Chocho

Food: Chocho
Country: Peru
Region: Huaraz
Flavor: Savory
Spice level: 4/10

I am so very excited to start this segment of my blog, street food of the world. If I am going to spend my 20s eating my way across as much of the world as I can, I may as well write about it.

Here is my very first, super special presentation: the Peruvian super food secret: Chocho!

What is chocho?

Chocho is probably the healthiest a street food is ever going to get. Basically it is a salad made up mostly of the tarwi bean (we'll get to that), mixed with tomato, onion, lime juice, cilantro, cancha (Peruvian popcorn), and maybe a spicy sayce and some MSG. Yeah, peruvians still loooove MSG. Either someone forgot to tell them how hidious that stuff is for you, or they just don't care. Give me flavor or give me death, dicen.

Mix all the ingredients up and you get a super simple, super tasty salad. The street vendors here come out early, and sell it till its gone, usually by lunchtime.

Though I had seen the white bean, tarwi, while living near Cusco, the first time I ever tried this snack was when I met a Peruvian family while hiking a little off the tourist trail in the Cordillera Blanca. One of the daughters gave me a big bag of the stuff and I could not stop eating it.

Photo credit for this one goes to the excellent Steve Freeman ;)

Now, what makes this street food so special? Its main ingredien: tarwi. Tarwi, scientific name Lupinus Mutabilis, is a white bean that grows all across the high Andes. The plant itself is a beauty.

In fact, as I researched this post I pretty much fell over.

Here I am haplessly googling tarwi thinking "hmmm I wonder what the plant looks like?"

It looks like the beautiful purple flowers that have seen on literally every hike I have been on in Peru, ever. They are ubiquitous throughout the Peruvian Andes.

Now of course I can't find a picture of it. But I promise I see it all the time.

The plant itself is great. It grows well in soil with low acidity and helps replace nitrogen in the soil, well and good.

The plant then produces little white beans that are remarkable! They are 40% protein (whaaaaat) and 20% fat. That is richer in proteins than either quinoa or soy.

The bean is inedible raw, as it has a high alkaloid content resulting in a bitter taste. Easily fixed, soak the little guys in water for a few days and you are good to go.

I used to see the mamitas doing this in the markets in Urubamba, and I thought it was a bit gross, but it is totally logical.

In Cusco, they mostly grind the tarwi into a paste and eat it like a stew. Nutritious, but I find the Huaraz region's Chocho a much more delicious way to ingest the magical tarwi.

Today I bought a bag of Chocho (2 soles) and a bag of pre-shredded lettuce in the market (1 sole). Total cost of my (very filling) lunch today? 3 soles, or about $1.

So if you find yourself wandering through a market in the Andes, seriously don't miss out on this one, get yourself a big bag of Chocho and start snacking.

Busco un burro: Buying A Donkey In Peru

Buying a donkey in Peru, as it turns out, is not the easiest thing to do. Which, if you have ever been to Peru, may surprise you, as they are everywhere. More ubiquitous than the llama, almost as common as the cow, donkeys are used on every trek, they can be found in every field.

Buying one should be easy. Or so we thought.

Depending on how you count it, buying a donkey in Peru took us either 3 weeks, or 4 days.

Okay, so why on earth were Steve and I trying to buy a donkey in the first place? We had this crazy idea to walk across Peru, from the ocean to the Amazon. But we really didn't fancy carrying all our supplies on our backs. It would be possible, but painful with resupply points unreliable. So we decided to buy a donkey to help us out.

The mission started when we arrived in Chimbote in late August, 2015. Chimbote is a fairly large port city in Peru. Most people told us to be careful, it was dangerous. We got a room in a small hospedaje, the cheapest version of a hotel in Peru, and went out to walk around the town.

A young girl, probably late teens early 20s, who was working at a cell phone booth, got to talking to us, so we mentioned we wanted to purchase a donkey. Hmm, not in Chimbote, she told us, but outside, in the chakras, or farm fields, in a town called Santa. But, she warned us, donkeys were very expensive, 2,500 soles (which in American is about $700... WAY more than we wanted to pay).

But it was our first lead. So off we went, next day to Santa, a smaller much more agricultural town outside of Chimbote. Found an agricultural products store and asked them, Busco un burro? Donde se vende? (I'm looking for a donkey, where are they sold?)

We are told.. no not in Santa! This is a town! Silly gringos, go out to the chakras!

Into a moto and out to the rural area we go. And there the moto leaves us. Standing in a deserted collection of 5 mudbrick houses. No one around. Donkeys in all the open spaces.

What was there to do? We didn't know, so we walked down the street until we found someone. Eventually we ran into a guy, using an ox to plow his field so he could plant his quinoa. We asked him about the donkey and he said he might know someone, so he calls a friend but pretty quickly we get the soon to be standard response 'nooo, no hay' (There aren't any).

He asks us, why do we want one? So we explain, we are looking for a donkey to carry our stuff from the ocean, up and over 2 mountain ranges, and out into the amazon jungle.

He looks alarmed. No, these donkeys, he tells us, are burros costeños (costal donkeys). A walk like that would kill them. They aren't made for carrying heavy things.

Well, another hour of fruitless searching and we decide to listen to this man's wisdom. I have to assume he knew more about his donkeys than we did. We decide, with much trepidation, to complete stage one of our walk, from the ocean, up and over the Cordillera Negra, and down into the Huaraz valley, sans donkey.

Probably the most painful decision of my entire life. But that is material for a whole different post.

14 days later and we've made it to the end of stage 1. We are in the bustling metropolis that is Huaylas, Peru.

Imagine crickets chirping. Wind whistling. Tumbleweed rolling by.

Huaylas, which had been our mecca for 2 weeks, is a ghost town. The tiendas are empty. There is one hotel and we appear to be the only guests. The market has one lady in it who, at 2pm, doesn't appear to be serving lunch.

We despair.

But over the next 4 days, this ghost town slowly comes to life around us and I come to love it.

The one lady who works in the market, her name is Maria and she becomes one of our biggest supporters in town. Every day she makes us breakfast and asks how the donkey search is going. On day 2, she calls up her son, and he and his cousin take us up the mountains to several villages, asking around for a donkey. We head up to tiny rural communities without cars and ask everyone we see if they have donkeys available. We are greeted by a chorus of 'nooo, no hay'. But to give our guide, Ibo, credit, he never gives up and even commiserates with us: que hacemos? We were his friends and he was going to help us, no question.

 On day 3, Maria takes us herself through town to ask some friends about donkeys. Even when we are away, she goes BY HERSELF to a different pueblo and actually finds someone willing to sell a donkey to us.

Not to mention Maria is incredibly kind, friendly, and welcoming. Her help turned Huaylas from a ghost town closed off to us to a living Peruvian community of which we are briefly a part.

Hmmm.. day 2 in the morning we take a walk through Huaylas, the next town, and all the farm fields in between. We speak with everyone who crosses our path. People ask us where we are staying, so they can find us if they do find a donkey. A man offers to sell us his, but he wants 800 soles, still way more than we are willing to pay.

Day 3, of the Huaylas search, was the day of success. After Maria took us to meet her friends without success, we went back and asked the man who owned our hotel if he knew anyone.

And so we are off again, following señor through the town to the house of a woman who may own a donkey. Well, she doesn't know of anyone, we get another 'noooo, no hay' and are about to give up, when a tiny campesiña woman walks by and our host calls out to her, does she know anyone who wants to sell a donkey.

For the first time, we don't hear 'nooo, no hay' Instead, as if in a dream, I hear her say, my mother wanted to sell hers, let me call her.

Her mother is an 88 year old Peruvian woman who is as small as child, but tough as nails and sweet as sugar. She says yes, she has a donkey, a female, who is made to carry things through the mountains, and she would like 250 soles for her.

Perfect.

Off we go with Felicity, not the 88 year old mother, but the daughter. She takes us down 'just 15 minutes' to the chakra where the donkey lives.

And the donkey is perfect. She is sweet, mild tempered, with healthy teeth, healthy feet, a good weight, and a clean, healthy coat of hair. I couldn't be happier.

We work out the details with Felicity and head back up towards town. I expect it to be the end of it, but no. Felicity takes us into her home and makes us a delicious lunch from scratch. Canchita (peruvian toasted corn), a pea soup, and a vegetarian dish of veggies and potatoes over rice. During all of this she tells us about her life, raising a daughter by herself, making sure her daughter stayed in school. Her problems with monkey and her life struggles. It was one of the most amazing experiences I have had in Peru.

And after lunch? She has us help her herd her sheep down to the fields below town.

And that, is how you buy a donkey in Peru.

Riding The Bus In Peru

I enter the terminal to the sound of men calling out the various destinations. “Cusco! Cusco! Chincero!” “Ollantaytambo!” Occasionally I am noticed and one calls out the name of some nearby tourist destination for the gringa. “Maras! Moray!”

But today I am not traveling for pleasure. Today I am heading to a different place, on a bus that las turistas rarely take. And why would they? There is no obvious reason to go to Yanahuara.

I step onto the bus and take a seat on the front bench, facing the rest of the passengers. We are waiting for the bus to fill up near to bursting. The driver will not leave before then.

The bus is in fact a van, converted into a combi of sorts, with four or five rows of seats bolted to the floor, and a bench along the front, facing the rest.

Here I sit.

Slowly the bus fills with characters from agrarian Peruvian life. At first glance they are all quite similar, in speech, in appearance, in attitude.

But look more closely.

Here is a stout old campesiña woman, carrying my weight worth of vegetables on her back in a brightly colored tapestry. And behind her a younger woman in traditional dress, a similar brightly colored tapestry on her back, but within it? A baby.

Next, a couple step on who, by appearances, could be from the United States. Modern clothes and modern cell phones, the only thing giving them away is the way they speak Spanish.

An elderly man enters, draped in a brightly colored traditional poncho and hat, and close behind a young boy similarly dressed.

And last, a group of school kids, middle school aged, talking loudly and teasing one another. To listen to their conversation they could be from anywhere. From Tokyo or Seoul or nowhere, USA.

The bus is full at last and we pull out of the terminal. Slowly we inch out of town and up into the farmland. Every once and awhile a “baja sol y luna” sounds and a few passengers step off. Later the bus pulls over and a few more step on.

There are no designated bus stops. The system has no order. And yet somehow it works perfectly.

The sounds on the bus rise and fall. Conversation switches from Spanish to Quechua and back again. Everyone seems to be at least some little bit bilingual.

Occasionally there is a furtive glance at the gringa. Children stare, openly curious. But mostly I am left alone, neither harassed nor treated like some special being. It is in a way comforting. To be left alone to observe. To people watch. To disappear into the tapestry.

Eventually my turn arrives and I say to the driver, “baja allyupampa”. I step off and pay my ochenta centimes for the ride and the bus drives off along the single paved road in the valley, leaving me in the dust.

And such is my experience riding a bus in Peru.

Thin Is Not The Goal

I am sick to death of feeling fat.

When I lived in Korea, I went on a diet and lost 30 pounds. Then I stopped dieting and lost more. I developed an eating disorder. Being thin became my whole life. It controlled my decisions. I would refuse to go out with friends on weeknights because I was afraid of getting fat. When I did go out, I would be plagued by anxiety before and feelings of shame and guilt afterwards.

Since February 2014 I’ve been on a journey to get over this. And this journey has been terrible. It’s been the worst roller coaster I’ve ever ridden. The engineers that designed this ride should be fired.

Every month I get bigger. I’ve thought for so long that I was doing something wrong. All the health gurus and recovery blogs would have you believe that if you just relaxed about food, you could eat whatever you want and not gain weight. You would magically make the right decisions because you will somehow instantly cure your obsession with food.

Well I have not cured my obsession with food. If I eat whatever I want, I will gain weight. That is just how my body works.

As a result, I’ve been in a constant state of war. The whole time I’ve been here in Peru I’ve been obsessed with not getting fat. I’ve counted calories, and worked out obsessively, and berated myself for every treat and restaurant meal.

Want to know what has happened? I’ve gained weight and I’ve gone up a pant size. For the first time since probably my freshman year of college, I wear a size 6.

And I’m ashamed. I feel terrible. I hate putting on fitted clothes. I want to will myself back down to a 4. I would kill to be a 4. And yet when I was a 4? I hated myself. I would have killed to be a 2.

This cycle has got to stop.

I’m putting my foot down. I’m making a statement. I’m not going to care about my weight anymore. I eat relatively healthy and I live a healthy life. Now that I am a size six, I finally have regular periods again, for the first time since before I moved to Korea. I hike nearly every weekend. I go for runs 3 times a week. I ride my bike. Last week I trekked across the Andes Mountains with a huge pack on my bag. I’m clearly healthy.

But if I want to enjoy sweets, have coffee with sugar and milk, and eat a Peruvian meal at lunch time, I’m going to do it.  If I want to eat white bread with butter and jam for breakfast, I’m going to eat it. I want to eat until I’m full and not feel guilty. I want to look at pictures of myself and not feel ashamed.

I’m sick of the hate. I’m sick of the negativity. But most importantly, I’m sick of wasting my time wanting to be thin.

Being thin is my most important goal. But I am going to change this.

I’m 26 years old leading the most incredible life I could ever have imagined for myself.

I have more important goals to accomplish.

I want to write a novel by the time I’m 30. I want to open my own NGO. I want to go back to school and get a Masters. I want to cross South America using only the power of my legs or arms with my boyfriend.

These are the goals that matter, not getting thin.

From this day forward I will not call myself “fat” out loud. I will not restrict the food that I eat. I will not suffer through hunger pains because I need to be smaller.

I do not need to be smaller. I need to be bigger. I need to be the biggest version of myself that I can be. I need to be great.

I would like that add that even as I write this I am still hoping that somehow something will click and I will magically shrink down to a size 2. Fixing this issue is not as easy as making a declaration, but it is a first step.

I will focus on the things in my life that are really important. And being thin isn’t one of them.