why Peru?

Why should you visit Peru? Why go on a Gourmet Tour to Peru?

Peru is becoming more and more of a destination not only for tourists but also for people that want to live in a different country and maybe even sometimes a different or better future. The following video "The Peruvian Dream" shows some of these new immigrant waves Peru is seeing lately. This video was prepared by the Ex-Pat community's newsletter service Living in Peru.

Peru is also becoming attractive to Americans, tourists or emigrants, for other reasons. It is merely 5-7 hours flight time of the southern part of the US, Peruvian communities all over the US are growing and its members are integrating better into the American society, the recent stability of Peru has made it a more interesting country to invest, the country has also reverted its standard tourism policy of fomenting only Machu Picchu and promotes also the waves of the north to surfers, the andes and its slopes to snowboarders, the jungle to nature enthusiast and of course its amazing wealth in natural products and the dishes and beverages made out of them to the foodies of the world.

TRIVIA Did you know for example, that Qorianka Kilcher from "The New World" fame is daughter of a Peruvian Amerindian from Southwest Peru and that her first name means "golden eagle" in quechua, Perus native language?

Did you know that pisco's fame was actually "made" in San Francisco in the gold rush era?

Did you know that Peru exports more organic coffee than any other country in the world?

Perus food, considered always by Peruvians as the best (sounds like Texans!), but lately Peru has been able to market its food and beverages also in other parts of the world and there are Peruvian restaurants popping up all over the world. New York, San Francisco, Miami, Madrid, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, all count with franchises of rather upscale restaurants that originated in Peru and are run by Peruvian chefs. For the launch of the brand "Peru" the National Agency for promotion (PROM-PERU) chose to bring Peruvian food and some other customs from Peru to Peru in Nebraska as you can see in this video called "Peru visits Peru"

Peru is not only interesting from a prepared foods standpoint in its restaurants, snack-bars,street vendors, hole-in-the-wall-places, etc. but it also is the cradle or production point of so many foods ubiquitous all over the world today. When is the last time that you checked the label of origin of your white asparagus? Peru is the world's second exporter of asparagus. Are the artichokes in the olive or salad bar in your favorite grocery store speaking Spanish to you? Thats probably because they most likely come from Peru, as Peru is the third biggest exporter of artichokes in the world. Ever heard of Peruvian Pink Salt? It is harvested in the Sacred Valley between Cusco and Machu Picchu and has been for over two thousand years. It will most likely be bigger than Himalaya when it finally reaches the US in volumes, because it is said to be a lot cleaner than Himalayan salt. Canned jalapenos, jarred piquillo peppers, normally associated with Mexico and Spain are a lot of times from Peru.

And there is more to come from Peru. With Cusquena and Cristal breweries having been absorbed by SAB Miller, a new group formed and is launching two new beers that will soon be showing up in grocery and liquor stores throughout the US. Look out for Tres Cruces and Franca beer soon. Also, since to make good pisco you need to have first a good wine, expect more and more wines coming from Peru, besides of the ones already here, Intipalka and Tacama. The weather allows grapes to grow greatly and more expert winemakers produce some astonishing juice out of these grapes.

Destination Peru:

In the last ten years Peru has seen a new influx of tourists, that do not first ask for the route to Machu Picchu, but rather where to eat the best cebiche, drink the best pisco sour or where to enjoy a meal prepared by the numerous chefs that graduate yearly of the Cordon Bleu's Cooking School Lima (only in Spanish) or any of the the other culinary schools in Peru. To read articles on Peru as a food destination in the Washington Post and NY Times click on each of the Newspapers name's.

A big part of the boom in Peru's food and beverages can be adscribed to Gaston Acurio, (Peru's "ueber-chef" as one article called him), who together with his wife Astrid runs restaurants covering several of the country's cuisines, as well as a still growing empire of restaurant outposts in other cities of South America, the US, and Europe. But besides of Acurio, there are other chefs in Peru that continuously contribute to the increase of Peru's image as a gourmet destination. To read more about Gaston Acurio click here.

Thanks to Acurios empire, but also before Acurio, Peruvian food has been literally in the worlds mouth. The German Marco Polo Guide for Madrid for example, used to list a Peruvian restaurant there as a secret tip to eat. The city of Patterson in NJ, the city with the biggest Peruvian population other than Lima, has dozens of Peruvian restaurants not only patronized by Peruvians.

But food originary from Peru has been made popular not only through the higher presence of its cuisine, but through its quality and great characteristics. Potatoes have been introduced to Europe by regents trying to ward of the starvation of its people, origin: the highlands of Peru and Bolivia. Quinoa has been made popular in the US due to the current craze for super foods. Asparragus and Artichokes from Peru can be found in Europe and the US in canned, jarred or frozen form. A recent Free Trade Agreement with the US should bring even more interesting products from Peru to the US.

On the beverage side its the Pisco distilleries that catch most of the attention, as Pisco is becoming a more and more popular beverage in the US and around the world, as its quality rises and its varieties get closer and closer to comparisons with cognac and other fine sipping beverages rather than to "aguardiente". The pisco war with Chile is in the meantime still going on, encouraging for the Peruvian side is this article by a Chilean journalist in Chile's biggest newspaper El Mercurio (only in Spanish). At this point we recommend to lean back and enjoy a perfectly prepared Pisco Sour, the national cocktail of Peru.

But also the wineries in Peru's Ica department are starting to catch some attention and we will see why that is so. Tempranillo wines that do not come from Spain's famed Rioja region, 100% Tanat or Petit Verdot wines, still a rarity in the wine world, French enologists that are trying to replicate the success of Chile's wine regions in the arid desert of Ica, all this and more will be experienced during the second day of the tour.

Last but not least is the heritage brought by German immigrants and their art of making beer. Specially the south of Peru boasts two outstanding breweries, Arequipena and Cusquena in Arequipa and Cusco. Though the beers have long lost their independence and are now part of the SAB Miller empire, Cusquena has been nominated by the management of the conglomerate the South American World Beer brand and is thanks to that widely available in the US. A visit to the brewery in Cusco is also part of the program.