Good cooking and an understanding of a finely spread table is maybe the most widespread habit among Peruvians. We eat all things and for every occasion: when babies are born, when the old die, when children turn into adults, when we want to tell the truth or a little, white lie in order to seduce, convince or love. A well spread table witnesses every occasion without exception.

Northern Coast Cuisine
Northern food must be eaten with gusto. The renown of its dishes grows daily thanks to its fresh lime-juice marinaded fish and shell fish served with a hot pepper sauce, onions, yams, corn on the cob, or boiled corn. Chinguirito dried and salted guitarfish is a typical seafood dish, as steamed fish, shrimp, and other shellfish and crab, served with mild creamed yellow peppers.

Amazon Cuisine
Food in the Amazon is full of exotic delicacies. Chonta or palm tree heart salad is a delicious entrée. Meats and plantains are ever present in the main dishes, like grilled banana plantains (tacacho) with deep-fried beef (cecina) served with chopped onions and dried meat, or stuffed bananas, a banana dough stuffed with beef and peanuts.

Lima Cuisine
Lima is known as the gastronomic capital of South America for a culinary legacy that inherited superb pre-Hispanic and colonial cooking traditions and was nurtured by the best Western and Oriental cooking. Fish and the fruits of the sea are the basic ingredients in “tiradito”, a soft marinaded fish served in a yellow pepper or “rocoto” chili cream, “parihuela” fish and shellfish soup. Shellfish and rice are served Peruvian style while Chorrillana fish is served with fried yellow peppers and tomatoes. Scallops Lima-style are baked with grated Parmesan cheese and barnacles are marinaded in a lime sauce and served with onion, tomatoes, red peppers and finely chopped parsley. Mixed “jalea” combines deep-fried shellfish, octopus and fish, among other delicacies.

Arequipa Cuisine
The culinary traditions of Arequipa, the White City, can be best enjoyed in the so-called picanterías (traditional restaurants with firewood cookers). A good meal starts with hot red peppers stuffed with minced meat, spices, cheese, eggs and milk (rocoto relleno); then the so-called “soltero” made of broad beans, corn, olives and chopped hot red peppers; and ocopa or sliced potatoes with peanut, onion and cracker cream and, finally, chicharrones or “deep-fried” pork.Favorite soups are the white broth of lamb loins, potatoes, corn, chickpeas, freeze dried potatoes –chuño– and spices, and “puchero,” a stew of boiled beef, pork and chicken with vegetables and spices.
 
Andean Cuisine
Heated in a firewood oven, earthenware of the highlands gathers odors and flavors linked to earth. Meats, tubers, grains and herbs are used in a great variety of simple but tasty dishes. Starters include corn with Andean cheese, chochos (tarwi) salad, "mote con chicharrón" or large white boiled corn and "deep-fried" pork, "cancha" (roasted corn), "humitas" (Ground corn and enveloped in its own leaves for cooking), "papa a la huancaína" (boiled potato pieces under yellow pepper and cheese cream) and "inchik uchu" (boiled manioc with peanut, yellow pepper and coriander sauce).

New Andean Cuisine
This trend, which appeared in the eighties, uses old Andean culinary traditions adapted to international cuisine preparation and presentation. Recipes are strict and food is very tasty and well presented, with little spices and fat, and lightly cooked. Starters and soups: cheese and spinach rolls in a passion fruit sauce, fresh snail and quinoa salad, cheese and barley flake flan, manioc pie, celery and leech cream with barley flakes.