On Sunday a couple of us went to Tiquipaya, which is a small little city just north of Cochabamba,to have lunch with some of our friends, Lauren and Martin, but lunch turned into Chicha and Chicha turned into a whole day out. The restaurant was family style so we decided upon Charqui which is Quechua for jerky. I figured it was just beef jerky with rice and mote with potatoes and eggs. WRONG… they layed down the dish and all I heard was some one say "llama". I said "WHAT this is llama?!" Sure enough it was, I tried some and it really wasn’t bad. It was a red meat like beef but had some weird unique flavor to it. It was something I had never tasted before. It was good! But it was also very chewy and tough to eat. They way they make Charqui is they cut the llama meat into really thin slices and cure it with salt then hang it to dry for a couple days. After the meat is really dried out they soak it in water and then fry it. It looked exactly like beef jerky but much drier and no juicy chucks like the ones you can pick out of a beef jerky bag. The whole thing was really interesting!
When we had first gotten to Tiquipaya we noticed a huge festival going on, it was a festival for the trout… not quite sure where they would get their trout from other than Lake Titicaca which is a half days bus ride.
I am always puzzled in Bolivia because not much that they do makes much sense, they are just looking for reasons to drink and dance. One of the girls ordered a trout dish at the restaurant, I dont know why we expected any less but, it came with the head, scales, fins, and all! I had a couple bits and it was really good!
After drinking our Chicha de Quinoa (much better than Chicha de Maiz) we headed out to the festival to watch people dance and listen to live music.
How chicha de quinoa is made
No comments:
Post a Comment