Eating Gluten-Free in Lima, Peru

 

A few years back I did a post on dining gluten-free in Peru, particularly in Lima. (Read it HERE) 

Today, the same recommendations I made then still apply.   Happily, however, the situation is improving quite a bit. 

There is now a small chain of grocery stores, Flora y Fauna, that has many gluten-free offerings - breads, cereals, pastas, pastries, and other items.  Many of the products they carry are also dairy-free, organic, or vegan.

 

In general supermakets, it is now harder to find gluten-free items, even though they are still somewhat available, because most seem to have done away with dedicated gluten-free and "healthy" shelving, and just mixed those products into similar categories. 

The bigger food companies comply with EU labeling standards and so are pretty good at listing allergens and shared equipment. 

Previously I had stated that Braedt charcuterie was gluten-free, but I have inquired again and this time got the response that they could not assure that their products were gluten-free.  However, there is now a line of good quality charcuterie available in supermarkets from the Casa Europa brand which are almost all labeled as gluten-free.

Dining out has become a bit easier.  Servers and cooks seem more aware of allergens and are clearer on whether they can accommodate special needs.  Their suggestions aren't always the most creative, but they make an effort.

We did find two places that make gluten-free dining fairly easy.

One is Limaná restaurant, in San Isidro.  Almost all of their menu is gluten-free, including gyozas, desserts and pastries, and the staff is knowledgeable and very friendly.  We've dined there a few times, and had good meals every time.  The prices a bit high, specially for the portion size (compared to many other Peruvian eateries) but the ability to just relax and have multiple gluten-free offerings  makes up for that.

 

Some of the gluten-free offerings at Limaná

Another spot is Armónica Café in Miraflores.  Most of their menu is not gluten-free, but they have a selection of gluten-free pastries, including alfajores, truffles, cookies, brownies, and more, and good coffee to go with them.

Armónica Café

 

Armónica is located on Avenida La Mar, which is a center for dining, with many well-known restaurants nearby, so it is a good option for an after-meal coffee and dessert.

Speaking of which, Armónica Café is walking distance from Pescados Capitales, where one can not only enjoy good cebiches (all naturally gluten-free) and excellent pisco sours, but also, we have discovered, a tasty gluten-free dish of grilled paiche (also known as "arapaima" outside of Peru).  The dish is called "Lujuria" on the menu.

 

 

Another recent discovery is the Rinconcito de Tiabaya restaurant in Surquillo.   The place is set up as a traditional picantería and serves the cuisine of the southern region of Arequipa.  It is not a gluten-free space but it has many dishes that are gluten-free just because the ingredients are such.  These will be basically fried meat cuts accompanied with salad and potatoes, and few othe dishes as well.  We were assured that the fryer is dedicated and only meats go into it so there is no cross-contamination, and the staff were very attentive to our needs.

 

The ability to order a full meal (portions are big), enjoy tasty traditional foods, have multiple options, and not have to leave something off or do without some part of it was nice.  

   

Huaca Pucllana

One evening in Lima my sisters, a couple of cousins, and I went out to dinner at La Huaca Pucllana.

La Huaca Pucllana is a restaurant in Lima's Miraflores district, which overlooks the pre-Inca adobe structure for which the restaurant is named.

 I had been there previously, many years ago, but had not then had the opportunity to dine outside, on the patio, overlooking the huaca itself. 

The huaca Pucllana (also known in older references as the huaca Juliana) is the remains of a 1,500-year old temple complex of the Lima culture, which flourished in the area for centuries before the Yschma,Wari, and later the Incas, left their mark.

It is amazing that such a structure still survives in the midst of a modern city of nearly 11 million inhabitants.  I the early 20th Century, in fact, part of the huaca was destroyed as a brick manufacturer mined it for the clay in its adobe bricks.  Another section was demolished to make room for surrounding streets.

The first exploratory archaeological digs took place at the huaca in 1967. Finally, in 1981 sustained systematic archaeological work was begun, and in 1984 a site museum and "historic-cultural park" were established.  The 37-acre site includes the 75-foot pyramid proper, and a surrounding ceremonial/administrative sector of smaller, interconnected, buildings and courtyards.

 

 

 

 

 Archaeological investigations have revealed that the site likely began as a temple to a sea divinity of the culture we have come to call Lima, in about 500 CE.   From about 800 CE the Wari people used it as a cemetery for their local elites.  After the collapse of Wari civilization in the 12th Century the site temples appear to have fallen into disrepair for some centuries. At various times, until the Spanish rolled into town, the Yschma villagers to repair or shore up portions of the huaca, particularly on the western side, facing the sea --an echo through the centuries of the site's original purpose.

Views from around Lima's main square

Lima's Plaza de Armas or, as it is officially known today, Plaza Mayor, is Lima's main square. It was there that the Spanish city of Lima was founded in 1535, on the site of an existing native settlement.

The square is surrounded by the Cathedral, the Presidential Palace, and City Hall. Many visitors mistakenly think that the buildings are colonial, but the only colonial architectural elements still surviving there are the art cast iron fountain, inaugurated in 1651, and the Royal Magistrate's House, also from the 1600s. Over time earthquakes, fires, and "progress" have led to the reconstruction or replacement of the rest.

The plaza and the surrounding boulevards are usually crowded with tourists, local visitors, taxis, and hawkers.  The reason I was able to capture images relatively devoid of crowds was that on the day I went in late July the plaza was closed to visitors.

Public school teachers from the Cusco region had gone on strike for better wages and better conditions, and had journeyed to Lima to press their case. There, there were joined by local teachers, and were staging rallies and marches a few blocks away, near Congress.  The government had decided to close off the plaza to avoid any disturbances or scenes in the vicinity of the Presidential Palace and to "protect the historic center".

Of course, I did not know that when I ventured downtown and found myself cut off from the bookstore I wished to visit.  After being rebuffed at one intersection, I found a spot where the police were letting a few people in. They shut access just as I was about to go in, and asked us to wait a bit. People got verbally belligerent, and the officer in charge --feeling stung after his earlier gesture-- now insisted that access was definitely closed unless one had an ID showing that one lived or worked in the area.  Fortunately, someone called to him that she had some foreign visitors who had "come all this way to know the historic center", so he instructed her to go in at the far end of the barricade.  Hearing that, I quickly followed, and when challenged, I told the officer there that "he said for tourists to come in this way" and handed him my California driver's license.  The cop glanced at it and waved me through.

Thus, I got to stroll around the periphery of the nearly deserted plaza, emptier that I've ever seen it, and on a serendipitously sunny day.

Lima city hall (built in 1944).

Art cast iron fountain (from1651), and the Presidential Palace (1938).

From L to R: Presidential Palace, Mt. San Cristobal, Royal Magistrate's House (17th C.), Archbishop's Palace (1924).

Lima Cathedral, viewed across the Plaza, from Pasaje Santa Rosa.

In the foreground, the monument to Taulichusco the Elder, last indigenous ruler of Lima.

Old Post Post Office & Telegraphs building

Huaca Malena

On July 21st, the same day that we visited the cave with the mysterious bones, Orlando and I traveled a bit further south along the Pan-American Highway to Huaca Malena.

Huaca Malena is a precolumbian site in the district of Asia, a couple of miles inland from the coastline.  The site was first established about 200 C.E. but subsequently was apparently all but abandoned for an extended period.  It gained new life as a Wari ceremonial center and necropolis from about 700 C.E. to about 1100 C.E.

The site consists of a large mud-brick platform, with associted terraces, altogether encompassing several acres.  It was first described scientifically in the 1920s by Peruvian archaeologist Julio C. Tello.  Tello and his associates discovered some 300 mummy bundles at Huaca Malena, establishing Huaca Malena as one of the most important pre-Columbian cemeteries on the central coast, along with Paracas and Ancón.

Like many other archaeological sites, after initial study Huaca Malena was left largely unstudied and unprotected and several decades of unscrupulous and indiscriminate looting ensued.

I knew of the looting and thus had a sense of what we'd see, but I was unprepared for the level of destruction visited upon the place and for the sight of a relatively recently-looted mummy abandoned on the surface.

The sheer scale of the damage is sobering. The upper level of the mound has been cratered and almost all architectural features obliterated.

The scale of what has been lost to looters is evinced by the hundreds of skulls that litter the site.

Orlando and I wandered about the mound for over an hour, checking out the exposed remains and artifacts.

One notable feature, among all the piles of skulls and bones, was the high proportion of deformed skulls. Cranial deformation was practiced by several ancient Peruvian cultures and was usually reserved as a mark of high status birth.  The large percentage of them attests to Huaca Malena's importance and the high status of those who were buried there.

 There was also evidence of the sophistication of the ancient Peruvians who lived in the Mala Valley surrounding Huaca Malena, in the form of at least one trephinated skull.

Trephination, or trepanning, is a type of surgical intervention in which a hole is made through the skull to expose the brain, or at least the dura mater, and thus relieve swelling or pressure from injuries. It is, in essence, an early form of brain surgery.  The healing surrounding the opening in the skull in the photo above points to that surgery having been successful, at least insofar as that the individual must have lived for a good length of time following it.

In addition to human bones, Huaca Malena is also littered with the detritus of whatever else the looters did not want.

We found this lovely little woven bag near the exposed mummy.  Orlando, who knows textiles, was able to immediately tell that it was made from a combination of cotton fabric and llama or alpaca wool.  It was sad to know that instead of being in a museum it would just sit there and rot away.

In addition to many textile remnants, we also encountered the remains of several other types of grave goods, including corn cobs, gourds, pacae pods, and camelid bones.

We were particularly surprised when a number large oddly-shaped stones associated with graves --or at least with the pits from which mummies had been looted-- turned out to be whale vertebrae.  Where they grave offerings?  Grave markers? A sign of special status?  However they were intended, they were certainly impressive.

Market Sights

Lunch at Astrid & Gastón

Last week, leading up to my birthday, I followed Liz's suggestion and treated myself to lunch at Astrid & Gastón.

Astrid & Gastón, the brainchild of pâtissière Astrid Gutsche and chef Gastón Acurio, is consistently ranked as one of the world's best restaurants. It has been on the San Pellegrino list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants since the list was launched fifteen years ago. (It is currently ranked #33 in the world, and #4 in Latin America.)

Liz and I have eaten there previously, treating ourselves to the tasting menu, when the restaurant was at its original home in Miraflores.  A few years ago Gutsche and Acurio moved it to the Casa Hacienda Moreyra in San Isidro.

Originally, the idea was that the space would hold two restaurants: one with a more casual vibe, and another which would be the actual Astrid & Gastón.  That scheme has been dropped and, although the two different dining spaces remain, the same Astrid & Gastón menu is offered at both.

This time around I ordered a few dishes à la carte.

House-made breads with, from L to R, guacamole, smoked tomato butter dusted with tomato ash, house-made butter.

Scallops with a pesto dressing and dusted with apple ice.

Sea urchin roe on toasted brioche.

Roasted guinea pig with corn cream, huacatay sauce, quinoa, and purple corn humita (basically a sweet tamale)

A couple of mini desserts that came with my coffee.

Of course, everything was delicious and the service was great. I left there a pretty happy guy.

Cave With A Creepy Mystery

The area near the town of Mala had at one time been somewhat remote, mostly agricultural land but is now being urbanized and my cousin's bought a plot of land nearby.  That led to my uncle exploring a cave he found while hiking along one of the area beaches.

He mentioned to me that there were some interesting remains in there that he thought I should see, so off we went this morning. After driving south of Lima for about an hour on the Pan-American Highway, we pulled off the road and headed down a dirt track toward the sea near the mouth of the Mala River.  Rounding a large stone outcrop, we came to the cave entrance.

The cave had been carved out of what long ago had been cliff at water's edge, but is now a hundred or so yards removed from the breakers.  Stones eroded from above have built up at the entrance, meaning that to approach once has to climb up the debris pile, and that the cave floor then slopes sharply down from the entryway.

Upon first glance, the impression is one of moist disarray. Slime and mold cover the floor and lower walls, and there are a number of plastic bags and empty bottles. Clearly, people have used the cave as a place to party, drink, and -one surmises- get high.

But, then, there's the bones:

At first, one might think that someone died in there, maybe of an accident, or an overdose or alcohol.   That would explain one corpse, but one person would not have two different -sized femurs from the same leg.  In fact, once one learns to distinguish the mold-covered shapes, one sees that the floor of the forward part of the cave is littered with femurs, ribs, and other bones. 

Counting femurs and sets of hip bones, we were able to determine that the cave holds the remains of no fewer than four individuals, at least three of which are piled in one corner of the alcove.

Given the conditions in the cave, the bones are clearly not ancient, but a several decades old at most.  [11 Aug. 2017: This would be supported by something I just noticed: The skull in the photo above appears to have what may be a bullet hole in the back.]

Unless the people were walked up to the cave and killed in situ, we were, then, looking at a body dump. But, whose? 

The physical effort required to haul a corpse up to the cave would be daunting, to say the least, indicating whoever humped them up there must have had help.  Serial killers?  A criminal gang, perhaps? Of course, it also crosses one's mind that they might be individuals who "disappeared" during the war of the 1980s and 1990s, or who died in police custody at some other time.

It is likely that, with a condominium going in next door, it won't be far long before the bones are removed and disposed of or interred with but cursory attention from the authorities, if that.

I expect that the answer to the riddle of the bones in the cave will never be known.

Lamp of the Three Graces

In downtown Lima, the Lamp of the Three Graces has stood at at the intersection of Ave. Nicolás de Piérola (also known by it's older name, La Colmena) and the Jiron de la Unión, where Nicolás de Piérola meets the Plaza San Martin, since 1915. Three Graces in fact predates the plaza itself, which was inaugurated in 1921, for the centennial of Peru's independence.

The lamp consists of a bronze sculpture of three women standing back-to-back around a central post which bears two rings of light globes.   It is an approximate copy of a famous marble sculpture, now in the Louvre, by 16th Century French sculptor Germain Pilon.  However, instead of supporting an urn for the heart of King Henri II of France, it holds a light fixture.

According to research by the author of Lima La Unica blog, the lamp was cast by the Val d´Osne foundry, which was located in Osne-le-Val, France. The Fonderie Val d'Osne became one of France's most important "art cast iron" foundries.

The Three Graces originally were located in the patio of the Principal Theatre. In 1889 it was moved to the Plazuela de la Merced, where it stood until it was moved to its present location.

Lunch at Kong restaurant in Chinatown

Yesterday, following a tip in the El Rico Dato FaceBook group in my search for soup dumplings, I took myself out to lunch at Kong restaurant at Paruro street in Chinatown.

Kong is a newish addition to Chinatown dining options. It is a small but well-appointed space that's clean and pleasantly decorated (and it has nice, clean bathrooms, which is a nice plus and a bit of a rarity in downtown).

Kong serves dim sum all day in addition to a few main dishes.  The offer goes beyond the usual chifa staples of fried rice and chi jau kay, and they don't offer a set-price lunch combo like many other places.  Nonetheless, that the menu is not super extensive, as in some restaurants, and the presence of some images in the menu booklet, makes ordering relatively easy. 

Prices are pretty reasonable. I walked out having enjoyed four dim sum plates and a pot of tea for about 20 bucks.

Of course, I ordered the soup dumplings (xiaolongbao or siu long pao).  Xiaolongbao are steamed dumplings filled with broth.  They are a southern Chinese specialty often associated with Shanghai, and are surprisingly difficult to find in the US -even in the San Francisco area- so getting them was a rare treat.  They are tasty, but especially, they are fun because they are so different to other buns or dumplings.

Another fun treat was an order of zu chai pao, sweet buns colored yellow and shaped like cute little piglets. They were filled with a sweet paste with pecan bits and were a nice way to end the meal.

Kong
Jirón Paruro 836
Lima