What to eat PERU 🇵🇪 Ceviche

Ceviche

Ceviche is one of these national dishes that has an epic saga in lieu of an origin story, spanning millennia and reliant on oral history and archeological discoveries as opposed to early written records. Before there was talk of a global south, or an Inquisition, before even the Conquistadores set sail for the new world, there were ancient peoples taking raw fish off the Atlantic coast of Peru "cooked" with just a bit of acid, later citrus, in fishermen's hamlets.

The first ceviche likely hails from Huanchaco on the north Pacific coast of Peru. There is archeological evidence to suggest the dish is 3,000 years old. Maricel Presilla, the author of Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America told National Geographic in 2021 that ceviche likely has its origin with fishermen who simply ate their catch straight from the waters. 

Her James Beard Award-winning cookbook, in part, chronicles her travels near the Montículo Cupisnique, where the El Brujo Archeological Complex rests. It is one of Peru's most ancient sites, pre-dating the Moche people, a pre-Inca civilization. Scholars believe the Moche were the first people to consume raw fish cured with acid. 

Presilla said of her travels, "I watched women catching small fish and seasoning them with a lot of ground hot [chilli] pepper and seasoned and eating fish just like that, with their hands, in their huts on the water." She added, "I can imagine the ancients doing the same".

The Moche people lacked citrus, an element now considered critical to ceviche. They did however not want for chillies which are 6,000 years old and indigenous to South America. Both onions and citrus arrived with the Conquistadores and Columbus' exploration of the so-called New World, which would have been news to the people who inhabited the land for thousands of years before the Europeans' arrival.

Initially, the Spanish arrived with bitter oranges and later lemons and limes from Asia, acquired by Spanish and Portuguese traders. Some historians are of the opinion that a fruit called tumbo, a relative of the passion fruit, may have been used in the early proto-ceviche of the Moche people. However, Presilla, the cookbook author, vehemently disagrees having tried the combination personally.

"I tried tumbo in ceviche when I was writing the book, but it takes a long time to work," she said, adding that the chilli peppers are acidic and there "you do see some action," but with tumbo, "I just can't see the ancients waiting around for the tumbo to work."

These days, the most highly regarded Peruvian ceviches see fish dressed up with lime juice, salt, chilli and onions. The citrus works with the proteins in the fish to coagulate and produce a milky liquid that cooks the fish and is known as tigre de leche or tiger's milk. In combination with the other ingredients, it produces a flavorful, punchy sauce that delightfully complements the fish. In Huanchaco these days, the cevicherías make use of a sea kelp known as cochayuyo – a delightfully fun word – in concert with locally grown limes known for their sharp flavor.

The first documented evidence of the term ceviche, though, comes much later, in 1820 in a song, "La Chicha," which is considered Peru's first national anthem. The Royal Spanish Academy believes the word might have the same etymology as the Spanish word escabeche, a dish of cooked or pickled fish. Escabeche itself is derived from the Mozarabic izkebech, a descendant of the Andalucian Arabic word assukkabag, which is in turn derived from the classical Arabic sakbaj, meaning cooked in vinegar. A second hypothesis posits the origin instead lies in the Quechua word sivichi, meaning fresh fish.

The debate over the etymological origins of the word has obvious political connotations. It also reflects the desire of Western scholars to both locate a starting point and appropriate that which is not natively their own during the colonial period and somehow, whether by force or might if necessary, impose an order and imprimatur on things. The archeological discoveries though suggest that whatever it was called, there was a dish like ceviche that long pre-dated the arrival of the Spanish, though it has evolved considerably with each new group's arrival to the Pacific nation.

Another important contribution to the making of modern ceviche comes from Peru's Japanese community, which grew and grew beginning in the last nineteenth century. Known locally as the Nikkei community, they were already possessed a cultural affinity for raw fish, from sashimi to sushi and beyond. Fused with Peruvian cuisine, the nikkei stamp on the local culture is profound and the flavors of two cultures now comingle to create new national flavors from ancient traditions.

While the classic Peruvian ceviche involves chunks of raw fish, often seabass, marinated in freshly squeezed limes and topped with onions, chilli peppers, the Nikkei contribution instead is more of a sashimi with a marinating sauce lasting but a few moments that is served promptly. This flash-style of sashimi-inspired ceviche was developed only in the 1970s by the Peruvian-Japanese chefs Dario Matsufuji and Humberto Sato.

One of the most famous practitioners of the fusion that is Peru's Nikkei flavor palette these days is Mitsuharu Tsumura, the chef and owner of Maido restaurant in the capital Lima. Tsumura is a big fan of the northern style of ceviche since, as he knows, "People have been fishing in the north in the same way for thousands of years." His favorite version is quite distinct, comprised of a bone-in makerel where you "suck the fish from the bones, and eat it very slowly". Ranked number one in Latin America and tenth in the world according to The World's 50 Best Restaurants, Tsumura's word on the matter is certainly one of contemporary culinary god-level stature. 

What he loves most about ceviche is that "You can have it any time in the year," and it's tremendous versatility for up-market and down-market moments such as "for lunch in a working day, on Sundays, for a hangover, as a streetfood or in a restaurant for $30."

In Lima where Maido is located, ceviche only rose to prominence and popularity on the table in the last sixty years, likely elevated by the rising fortunes of the Nikkei community itself. "Until then, it was a fisherman's dish," Tsumura explains, but "because the Japanese have sashimi, they appreciate all the properties of raw fish."

In December 2023, UNESCO bestowed upon the Peruvian classic one of the highest culinary honors of the modern world, that of being part of an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Earlier national recognitions had preceded it, such as the Peruvian state's designation that cevoche belongs to the National Cultural Patrimony.

While only 2,000 words of the Moche people's language are known in the modern world, their favorite food has its place at the center of the modern nation's culinary culture. Not bad for a people whose short pointed prows made of mere leaves and stems of reeds called caballitos de totora or totora reed, a type of giant bullrush, were responsible for bringing in the day's catch. It is also the dish shared by the Incas, a people who Francisco de Xerez, who accompanied Francisco Pizarro on his conquest of Peru, described as a "dirty people, they eat meat and fish, all raw."

Recipe

Ingredients:

175 grams red snapper (approximately 1 large filet)
250 grams peeled red prawns
200 grams scallops (approximately 6 large scallops)
12 limes
1 tablespoon yuzu ponzu
1 tablespoon chili oil
Maldon salt
2 small purple onions
4 small red chilis
40 grams of cilantro
100 grams of garlic sprouts
Sweet chili sauce
Togarashi
Pul biber

Step 1: Cut the fish finely, filleting the snapper, butterflying the prawns and making a thin carpaccio of the scallops. Combine on one plate or plate individually according to preference. Feel free to refrigerate after each fish is cut.

Step 2: Cut and juice the limes into a bowl. Add the yuzu ponzu and the chili oil and whisk together with a fork. Pour into a small pitcher you can pour from.

Step 3: Remove the fish from the refrigerator. Sprinkle Maldon salt over the scallops and red snapper. Pour the lime juice mixture gently over the fish and return to the refrigerator for 45 minutes to one hour.

Step 4: Thinly slice red onions and the red chilis. Wash and peel the cilantro from the stems about 5-10 minutes before serving.  

Step 5: Pull fish from the refrigerator and garnish with sweet chili sauce and a bit of togarashi and pul biber. Pile on the red onions, cilantro and garlic sprouts. 

Tips, tricks and notes:

With the scallops, leave the shiny side up when plating.

Learn where to eat Peruvian food in Switzerland.

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