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.

My Eating Disorder Struggle and Recovery

The story that I am about to relate has been casting about in my head for months. It wanted to be told. Or rather, I wanted to tell it. But something stopped me. I wasn't ready. It is a deeply personal and revealing account of a traumatic experience, and some people would probably consider this oversharing. But really what else is the internet is for?

I wasn't ready to tell this story until now. Hopefully by the end of this post you will understand why.

For the last 2 years I have been suffering from a debilitating eating disorder. I have never seen a professional therapist and I have never been diagnosed but I don't need a doctor to tell me what I know to be true.

Let's start from the beginning.

I guess it starts from my desire to be perfect.

Pretty much since I realized I was a female human being, right around the age of 11 or 12, I have had issues with my body. Body dysmorphia, as it is called. What young woman, or man, doesn't? I always thought I was fat. This feeling of inadequacy manifested itself as internal self-hatred. I now know that this results from, among other things, my tendency to compare myself to others. "I wish I had her legs. I wish I had her waist." Or it stems from the less obvious and more insidious comparisons like reading a book that describes a desirable woman as slim and thinking that I should also be slim, while fearing that I am not. Seeing pictures of women everywhere photoshopped into impossible bodies, and not being able to tell myself it is ok not to look like them. For whatever reason, I am extremely susceptible to these influences and spent more than a decade internalizing this idea of what a beautiful woman should be. I wanted to be beautiful, I wanted to be perfect, but I always felt that my body was out of my control.

Then I moved to Korea.

Talk about out of control. When you move from the English speaking western world to Asia, everything is out of your control. Tiny things such as buying laundry detergent without asking for help become major victories. It is easy to be overwhelmed. And when overwhelmed and feeling too much emotion, I tend to turn to food for comfort. So that is what I did in Korea. I ate. And as a result I gained weight. Looking back at photographs now, I can see that I didn't really gain so much weight, just a little. I was not the horrible fat slob that I saw in the mirror every day. But at the time, I was disgusted.

In November 2012 I decided it was time to get myself under control. I had read some quote somewhere attributed to Buddhism that said, and I paraphrase, mastery of the self is the greatest victory. This became my mantra. I joined a Bikram Yoga studio and made a promise to myself that I was going to be healthy. I was going to stop eating junk like dry packets of ramen noodles, and eat more veggies. Whenever I felt a craving for some junk food, I exerted total self-control and never let myself indulge. I took a 90 minute Bikram class every day. And at first these were positive changes, but I wasn’t losing weight.

Then I started counting calories.

It started out reasonable, I was eating 1800 a day I think. But soon I dropped to 1200. And even if I worked out, I kept it at 1200. Strict. It became a daily obsession. I spent so much time and energy focused on calories. I bought a scale and weighed every single piece of food that went onto my plate. Including lettuce. Seriously. I knew precisely how many calories I ate every day. I felt that I was healthy and in control.

I stopped listening to my body and only listened to my calorie counter. If I felt hunger, I ignored it because it was not a scheduled meal time. I made food that fit with my mathematic calculation of how I should be, instead of catering to how I actually felt. (Which was hungry)

I would have anxiety attacks at the thought of unplanned food. I never went out with friends on weekdays, because I was too afraid to eat calorically dense restaurant meals. Even within my own kitchen I developed fear foods. I feared cheese, and oils, and avocados, because they were calorically dense. I feared bread. I feared rice. I feared fruit. I even feared onions and garlic because they had slightly higher caloric value. Yeah.

On the weekends I would go out with friends and seriously let myself go. I would eat mountains. Drink horrific amounts. It’s amazing I still have a liver, really. And I would wake up on Sunday or Monday hating myself for my lack of discipline, and staring in the mirror for hours analyzing every inch of my body, desperately trying to ensure my 2 days of eating hadn't made me fat. The rest of the week was a punishment for this indulgence. Rinse, repeat.

But at the time, I simply thought I was being conscientious and healthy.

Oh yeah, please combine the above description of my eating habits with an absolute obsession with exercise. I never missed a day. I never took a day off. Or, if I had a rest day, it usually included a 6 mile walk or intense hike.

This lasted from November 2012 - August, 2013. By this time I estimate that I weighed in at or below 100 lbs or 48kgs. I had stopped weighing myself at 52kgs. I was shocked that my size 0 pants were falling off. I still looked in the mirror and hated what I saw. Even when I was bone thin, I looked in the mirror and hated it. I had convinced myself that if I lost the fat, I would be beautiful. Well I lost the fat, but the insecurities remained, only this time I hated that I looked more like a praying mantis than a human being.

I probably would have kept going down this self-hating, self-flagellating path, but 3 very important and disconnected things happened that August.

First, while running to catch the last bus home, I stumbled and broke my pinky toe, thus rendering me incapable of heading to my twice daily gym sessions.

Second, a very good friend started calling me "Auschwitz" after a few beers, and told me that in fact I was terrifyingly thin.

Third, I went to visit a friend from California in Tokyo. For the first time I remember what life was like before I was obsessed with every piece of food that passed my lips. When I could enjoy the flavors and the textures, and allow myself to eat rich foods just because they are delicious, and not feel guilt and self-hatred after the fact.

When I got home from Tokyo I looked in the mirror and tried to objectively look at my body. I was killing myself, slowly, but surely. My hips were a mess, constantly in pain from overuse. In fact, my whole body was a painful mess.

I would love to say that after that moment of realization, I decided to let go of all these habits and began healing, but the road to recovery is not so simple. In includes binge eating, and then restricting, and then binging again, and then restricting. So many tears, and days full of self-hatred and regret for the binge the night before, followed by another binge. I gained weight steadily, but I hated every pound. I constantly berated myself for getting fat again. I still worked out constantly and most days still restricted my calories and counted every single morsel that passed my lips.

Then I left Korea and began traveling.

I was terrified. I had no gym. I had to eat street food. Greasy, calorically dense, delicious street food. I could barely enjoy it. I started skipping breakfast as a way to control my caloric intake.

Still I did not listen to my body. I only listened to my mind which said, no, don't eat. If I felt hunger, I felt guilty for wanting to eat. If I ate till I was full, I felt guilty for that too.

Last February was my last true attack of restrictive eating. I went to a Yoga Teacher Training where they encouraged a vegan diet, and they prepared a beautiful buffet for us of the most healthy and delicious meals. I made sure to always only take one helping, I stayed away from rice, and I always left the table hungry. By the end of that month I was weak, thin, and angry with myself.

So I made up my mind. It was time to change. I had to get over this or it was going to take over my life. So I started eating. And eating. And eating. You think the guy from Man vs Food is bad, try watching a person recovering from an eating disorder. I never felt full. My body, after having been deprived for so long, wanted to make sure it could stock up in case it was struck by another famine.

I began eating my fear foods. I ate ice cream. I ate packaged food. Candy. Snacks. Street food. Bread. Sandwiches. It was glorious. I allowed myself to taste the sweet, decadent, oh so greasy fried foods that they sell from stalls in Indonesia. I indulged in multiple helpings of Dal Bhat in Nepal. I ate ice cream cones. And chocolate. I ate noodles and rice and fruit and I ate whatever I wanted.

And it was painful. I still hated my body. I was still healing.

This continued during my summer in America. Living at home with my parents, trying to find a job that I wanted, trying not to succumb to the listless depression that comes with unemployment. But even though it was tough and my relationship with food and my body suffered, I didn’t give up, and I did end up in Peru.

In Peru, for the first time in two years, I feel happy with my body. Not every day, not constantly, but I feel it, and it is amazing. I'm sure there are a lot of factors that influence this, including the fact that I have a new job, in a new country, and my energy is focused externally. I am meditating more and as I mentioned in a previous post, the very energy of the land here seems to have positive, healing qualities.

But there is one factor that has helped heal my body image immensely that I want to share: In Peru, I have no mirrors.

In Korea and the States, I was, we all are, surrounded by full length mirrors. It seems like every surface is reflective. And every time I passed one, it gave me a chance to look myself over and analyze what was wrong with my body at that moment. It kept my focus on my physical appearance and distracted from what is really important.

Here in Peru, I do not have a mirror in my bedroom or my bathroom. There is a small mirror in the teacher’s room at school where I check my face and hair before I go teach, but otherwise I am without my reflection. I cannot tell you how wonderfully liberating this has been. The change is drastic and incredible. I know that I am the right size for me. I feel that my body is powerful and beautiful, and more importantly, I am aware that it is a vessel for the mind and soul that actually make me who I am.

I feel liberated. Am I completely healed? No. I still have bad days. Nights where I catch myself eating extra food after dinner and feeling guilty. Days where I grab at the fat around my belly and feel gross. But really? I probably look beautiful. I would look beautiful if I gained ten pounds or if I lost ten pounds. The fact is that it doesn’t matter.

I’ve realized that we have a plague of vanity fed by images and mirrors. Here look at this model, now look in the mirror and see all the ways that your body is wrong. If you’ve walked down the street today, chances are someone thought you were beautiful. If you’ve had conversations today, chances are someone thought you were funny or charming or intelligent. This is what really matters.

And if you haven’t gone outside today, it’s probably time to step away from the mirror and focus your incredible mental energy on something more important than the size of your biceps or the best posture to ensure have a thigh gap.

Sometimes I see my reflection and I realize I am just a normal sized person who doesn’t need to lose weight. I glance quickly, feel content, and move on. When I think about how I used to think this body was ugly and fat, I start to smile. I was so foolishly vain. It doesn't matter. I look fine. The more important things are within me.

Because in the end it is not important what you look like, it really isn't. What is important is how you feel. How do you spend your day? How do you use the beautiful, amazingly creative and incredibly talented mind that all humans have? Focus internally, heal the soul, and the body will follow.

Perhaps this post reads as slightly dramatic. I will be the first to say that I am a dramatic person, but I actually toned down and heavily edited the above story. My hope is that you find it relatable. I know I am not the only person who struggles with this. If you struggle with your body, in an intense way, like the story I just recounted, or in a small way, please know that you are not alone, and that you are beautiful. If you want to talk, please send me a message. I'm pretty sure only my friends read this blog, but even if we have never met before and you somehow stumbled onto this post, please don't be afraid to shoot me a comment or a message. I am not a therapist, but I am a human and a listener. Society teaches you that your most important asset is your looks. You must be beautiful, and beauty only has one form. This is wrong. It is incredibly difficult to break free but we can do it. Embrace your inner divine.