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.
Showing posts with label more food and drink. Show all posts
Showing posts with label more food and drink. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Friday, September 11, 2009
Tacna Day Weekend Continued
Saturday: So although I am posting this long after the fact, it definitely warrants some ink (or computer space?). On this day, I went with my host mother and Cara to the Feritac (Feria de Tacna) that might be basically the equivalent of a state fair, but for Peru. It had all sorts of advertisement booths giving out free nonsense on different products (replete with free samples, but I will get to that later), some stands selling traditional candies and delicacies, a car show (which in its own right was bizarre because it was a car audio show and so it was all about who had the loudest sound system and some of the cars were crap), a horse show (also bizarre), and assorted other things.
We end up getting in because my host mother, who is a nut, goes up to a random guard at a random gate and starts badgering him about how she knows the head of the fair (possibly through some distant, random connection) and has free passes (untrue) and has been walking around the fair forever trying to find the right gate (also untrue). Her craziness/persistence/lack of shame makes things work and the guy just waves us through instead of fighting.
After strolling through the fair and seeing what it had, we entered the big building where all the little stands were. I would estimate that about a fourth to a half were wine, pisco, or ¨healthy drinks¨(everything from coffee liquors to fig wine to the like). We walked around sampling everything and getting a little buzzed off of all the free little shots of the different drinks. Though I did get a tired of trying to pull the ¨I might be interested in your product¨attitude.
Then we go to wait where they are going to have a food festival of different alpaca dishes. Showing her crazy brashness once again, my host mother goes behind one of the tables where the different culinary schools are preparing their foods and drinks and just pretty much steals a couple seats for us. So, we sit there for awhile, and then she starts to ask for samplings of the different foods from the different culinary schools, and most are friendly enough and buzzing too (they were passing around more pisco that they shared with us) that they were totally cool with it.
All of a sudden, next to us arrives the mayor of Tacna (a gordo named Lucho Torres) and he takes his seat right there. We have been thrust into the spotlight as the guests of honor at the left hand of the mayor! And since he was educated at the Jesuit school in Tacna, of course my crazy host mother starts talking with him and before I know it we are all friendly and chummy, he is giving us big servings of the numerous alpaca meat platters he is recieving (at one point, we each got our own couple of grilled alpaca ribs - delicious), serving us wine and pisco that they have given him, and we are being serenated as well by what looks like a fifties washed up lounge singer who is singing ¨typical¨ music for the occasion. By the end of the afternoon, we were invited to numerous pisco sours as well, saw some trick bartending, and basically just had a grand old time. I have pictures to prove it all that I will put up when I can.
Sunday: Birthday of this sweet old lady who cooks breakfasts at the market by my school. We go to her house for wine, a delicious cocktail of some sort and heaping portions of arroz verde (or arroz con pollo) that is simply outstanding.
Monday: The birthday of the communications teacher Rosalia. Needless to say, much alcohol (so much was being pushed on me that was trying to hide the glasses and ended the night with six or seven on the table next to me, all with varying amounts of alcohol) was served, some delicious large portions of food were doled out, and I became a dancing fool. I really enjoy those type of smaller, intimate gatherings that are just good times to share and relax.
Man, was I tired the rest of the week though.
We end up getting in because my host mother, who is a nut, goes up to a random guard at a random gate and starts badgering him about how she knows the head of the fair (possibly through some distant, random connection) and has free passes (untrue) and has been walking around the fair forever trying to find the right gate (also untrue). Her craziness/persistence/lack of shame makes things work and the guy just waves us through instead of fighting.
After strolling through the fair and seeing what it had, we entered the big building where all the little stands were. I would estimate that about a fourth to a half were wine, pisco, or ¨healthy drinks¨(everything from coffee liquors to fig wine to the like). We walked around sampling everything and getting a little buzzed off of all the free little shots of the different drinks. Though I did get a tired of trying to pull the ¨I might be interested in your product¨attitude.
Then we go to wait where they are going to have a food festival of different alpaca dishes. Showing her crazy brashness once again, my host mother goes behind one of the tables where the different culinary schools are preparing their foods and drinks and just pretty much steals a couple seats for us. So, we sit there for awhile, and then she starts to ask for samplings of the different foods from the different culinary schools, and most are friendly enough and buzzing too (they were passing around more pisco that they shared with us) that they were totally cool with it.
All of a sudden, next to us arrives the mayor of Tacna (a gordo named Lucho Torres) and he takes his seat right there. We have been thrust into the spotlight as the guests of honor at the left hand of the mayor! And since he was educated at the Jesuit school in Tacna, of course my crazy host mother starts talking with him and before I know it we are all friendly and chummy, he is giving us big servings of the numerous alpaca meat platters he is recieving (at one point, we each got our own couple of grilled alpaca ribs - delicious), serving us wine and pisco that they have given him, and we are being serenated as well by what looks like a fifties washed up lounge singer who is singing ¨typical¨ music for the occasion. By the end of the afternoon, we were invited to numerous pisco sours as well, saw some trick bartending, and basically just had a grand old time. I have pictures to prove it all that I will put up when I can.
Sunday: Birthday of this sweet old lady who cooks breakfasts at the market by my school. We go to her house for wine, a delicious cocktail of some sort and heaping portions of arroz verde (or arroz con pollo) that is simply outstanding.
Monday: The birthday of the communications teacher Rosalia. Needless to say, much alcohol (so much was being pushed on me that was trying to hide the glasses and ended the night with six or seven on the table next to me, all with varying amounts of alcohol) was served, some delicious large portions of food were doled out, and I became a dancing fool. I really enjoy those type of smaller, intimate gatherings that are just good times to share and relax.
Man, was I tired the rest of the week though.
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