01/11/2026
Every November, Andean kitchens fill with the smell of a bread you will not find the rest of the year.
The t’anta wawa, wawa meaning baby in Quechua, often with a little painted face pressed into the dough. It is made for the first days of November, when, as the belief goes, the people we have lost come back to visit. Families cook what the dead loved, carry some to the cemetery and keep some for the table. It is gratitude more than grief. The season reaches back to the Inca month of Aya Marcay Quilla, set aside for honoring the dead long before wheat and bread ever arrived.
A few hours from Cusco, in the Southern Valley, we make them with Diego and Marlene. Their home, built out of wood and stone, is where their small workshop lives. Diego walks you through where the custom comes from while you shape the dough. Lunch at the long wooden table, and you leave with a warm wawa you made with your own hands.
And a small piece of how Peru keeps its loved ones close, long after the trip ends.
