Peruvian Cultural Fun

While admist an impressive stretch of birthdays (Saturday was that of a 10-year-old student of mine from last year, Yessenia, who has an incredible and welcoming family; Sunday the lunch for our school psychologist, whose actual birthday is today; and yesterday we celebrated with an ex-JV volunteer who has been down here for awhile with her husband, J. P., who was a Peruvian volunteer a few years ago) a fun Peruvian cultural experience surprised me yesterday.

When I arrived at school, the fourth grade teacher came looking for me and began to ask me about my schedule. Uh, oh, I thought, she was going to ask me to take over her class today. I don´t mind helping out a collegue at all, but this particular class can be a bit movido (all over the place), especially when their regular teacher is out or their schedule is thrown for a loop. Any anxiety, however, was for naught, as she asked me if I wanted to be the judge for a contest.

I jumped at the opportunity - I love interacting and being involved with my students in non-teaching (or rather, non-class hour) activities. This particular contest turned out to be better than I could imagine as the teacher had done a contest with the class for Day of the Potato, which had come and gone this past Saturday with little fanfare in my life (too many birthdays, I guess).

When I arrived for the event just before lunch, I was stunned to see that each student (32 in total) had prepared a dish made in some way with potatoes. The culinary variety (almost assuredly prepared by the parents in probably 95% of the cases - one or two unintentionally funny students even mistakeningly said something along the lines of ¨my mother fried the potatoes¨ when we asked how they prepared it) included different types of pastel de papa http://imagenes.mailxmail.com/cursos/imagenes/5/3/pastel-de-carne-y-papas_24935_1_1.jpg, papa rellena http://peru-recipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/papa-rellena-stuffed-potato.jpg, causa https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqlnnJU4NMbw-fLQTu4qOJlxhNn3lea96vRaj0M2jvG2BtUeISpbPFIOP4-vXy94i7AgmoBnq4eX3_1LQ-7jLoS4iNAy-GX0X9R8wvMiGuU5wwWXg4hzXPxuIuHexxKZlTf1vkgy4g3Inf/s400/causa-peruvian-cuisine-01.jpg, and many more.

As the judge, I listened first to a short explanation of why the potato rocks as the nutritional base for any meal (so many varieties and so many vitamins!). Then I had to judge each student in three categories: presentation, exposition and flavor. I sampled each and every plate. Oh, to be a food critic! Though in all honest, I don´t have the palate for it and yesterday I think I gave almost everyone at least a 5 out of 7 in flavor because I was too happy and enjoying myself.

The two joint winners turned out to be the first and last dishes, which were a papa rellena prepared with much detail by the daughter of the school cook (hmmmmmm, surprise surprise) and a pastel de papa that went along with its rocotto relleno (which is one of my infrequently eaten, but favorite dishes down here....). Also, as more than half of life down here focuses on food (those Peruvians love their food and are quite proud of it as I have noted before), I of course went from judging this contest straight to lunch.