03/27/2023
Pachamanca
(from Quechua pacha "earth", manna "pot")
🍠🌽Atraditional Peruvian dish baked with the aid of hot stones.
I have always loved traditions and rituals. One ritual I enjoy in Peru is preparing a Pachamanca. After our full treks, we usually come back to our little town of Chiquian and celebrate with this tradition. Here you can see my friends prepping the oven built into the earth by digging into the ground in our front yard.
1) Preparation begins with the heating of stones over a fire, and the meat is then placed on top. The fire is covered with grass and earth, and the resulting oven is opened up after around two hours. Usually, a large quantity of meat is cooked, perhaps a whole sheep, to serve several people.
2) This important part of Peruvian cuisine, which has existed since the time of the Inca Empire, has evolved over time, and its consumption is now widespread throughout modern Peru, where regional variations have appeared in the technical process of production, but not in the ingredients or their baking.
The preparation is not only not limited to Peru, but also exists with minimal variants in other Andean countries, such as Ecuador.
