PERUVIAN FOOD AND NATURAL PRODUCTS

Here we want to offer you a small guide of tipical products and food of Peru. We also want to show the world, some natural products who grow in Peruvian soil, wich in many cases, are use to cure some medical problems.

THE QUINUA

Quinua is a remote food of the Andean man from time. According to Max Uhle, deduction based on the done archaeological findings in Ayacucho was domesticated before the 5,000 years A.C..

Its uses extended to almost all the Andean region: Peru, Bolivia, parts of Ecuador, Chile,
Argentina and Colombia. The word quinua or quinoa is of origin quechua. It was considered at the time of the incaico apogee, a sacred food, being used in addition for medicinal uses.

According to the cronistas, in the religious celebrations quinua was offered to the
God Inti (Sun) in a gold source, and every year was the same Inca who was in charge to initiate seedtime in important a ceremony.

At the present time it is cultivated in Peru and Bolivia, also in some zones of Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina. It gives an annual harvest, and its size can be of 1 to 3,5 meters high. The seeds can be white, or black yellow, gray, pink, red coffees, and they are classified according to its size in great, medium and small.

It presents/displays an enormous variety, and its classification based on ecotypes, recognizes five categories

- Quinuas of the Valley, that grows in InterAndean Valleys, between 2.000 and 3.000 m.s.n.m.

- Quinuas Altiplánicas, that grows in the environs of Lago Titicaca.

- Quinuas de Salares, native of salares of Bolivia.

- Quinua of the Level of the Sea, that grows in the south of Chile.

- Quinua tropical Sub, that grows in interAndean valleys of Bolivia.

The investigation during decades has produced species selections, the most spread they are Kancolla and Blanca de Junin (selected in Peru in 1950), and Sajama (selected in Bolivia in 1960). At the beginning of years 80 a new sweet variety denominated Nariño in the Cusco was
obtained. Peru and Bolivia have the greater collections of varieties of quinua, having each one more than 2,000.