The Museum of Peruvian Gastronomy (Clever title, right?)

Our first and only stop of the day was the Museum of Peruvian Gastronomy. It was a neat little museum with many replicas of traditional Peruvian cuisine as well as displays of old 18th century methods by which the food was cooked and prepared.

This gastronomy museum is fairly new, opening its doors for the first time in April of 2011. But while the museum is very young, it provides information about over 2000 years of Peruvian history in the form of its cuisine. More background information on the Museum of Peruvian Gastronomy can be found here: http://www.limaeasy.com/culture-guide/museums-lima/museum-of-the-peruvian-gastronomy.

As stated earlier, many replicas of Peruvian foodstuffs are displayed in the museum, but there are also actual bags of different types of grains grown in Peru and used in Peruvian dishes, which I was able to see up close and take some pictures of:

As can be seen, there were little pamphlets beside each bag of grain, which included recipes and cooking directions for different dishes involving each respective grain.

Probably the most fascinating part of the museum to me was the recreation of the Last Supper in which Jesus and his disciples are depicted eating pre-Colombian Peruvian cuisine, which shows the intermingling of two cultures and how they influence one another. Featured in the picture are cuy (guinea pig), papaya, grapes, etc.

Finally, one more piece that really interested me was the map of Peru which laid out all of the types of foods cultivated by ancient Peruvians and where they were cultivated. For example, as is probably obvious, fish including anchovies were utilized mainly in the coastal parts of Peru such as modern-day Lima. In the more mountainous regions of Peru, people relied more on things like potatoes of all varieties.

 Overall this museum had a lot to offer and was a great scholarly and personal experience. I learned a lot about not only Peruvian cuisine but also Peruvian culture in general. The only thing about the museum that I didn't get to experience was the store, which appeared to be closed from what I could discern. I would have like to have visited it and seen what it had to offer.