The Pure Nacional cacao bean, supposedly indigenous to Ecuador and wiped out due to disease a century ago, and was apparently rediscovered recently in northern Peru's Maranon Canyon. As TastingTable clearly shows and the New York Times reports, American chocolatier Moonstruck has already released a Pure Nacional single origin chocolate…
Unlike in neighboring Ecuador, Peruvian cocoa beans have not found a following, though growing conditions are quite similar. The industry just hasn't developed. In Lima's Miraflores district, the sweet shop Xocolatl, is one of the first to concentrate on higher end chocolate in the city. Even though the majority of…
At Lima’s food festival of Mistura, it was the bees that first attracted me to Postres Tradicionales Tina. The restaurant is headed by a group of Afro-Peruvian women who serve a long list of traditional Limeño sweets. For some reason, every bee within a mile of their stand at Mistura…
In Ecuador guanta de monte is just another name for Paca, or Agouti paca. It's a large rodent, not as large as a capybara that lives off the forest floor, eating fallen fruit, leaves, and tubers. In parts of the Amazon, it's food. In Coca, where Francisco de Orellana set…
Oilve oil production in Argentina is still in its infancy. This year is expected to be a poor one because of the falling price of the euro and the fact that Argentineans only consume .15 liters of olive oil annually, compared with 25 liters in Greece. Still, as I discovered…
The week before the NYTimes Travel article, 36 Hours in Boston (NYTimes.com) came out, I was in Boston. I was pleased that the writer didn’t leave out Neptune Oyster's Lobster Roll, which was probably the highlight of my short trip. The narrow North End eatery is as attractive of an…
Merken is made from the Cacho de Cabra chile (translates to Goat Horn). The chile itself is extremely hot, though merken – which is mixed with salt and spices such as cumin and coriander - tends to vary in strength. Generally it's mild. It's more smoky and flavorful than spicy…
Tierra Firme is iconic. Though Panama City’s international terminal has added the culinary diversity of a Subway and Dunkin Donuts in the past couple of years, Tierra Firme is still the lone sit down eatery. Everyone to have passed through the international lounge of Tocumen knows it. For some reason…
In Mollendo, a beach town on the coast near Peru’s southern city of Arequipa, there’s a place called Fory Fay. While the history of the name varies depending on whom you speak with, it is interesting nevertheless. The most common tale is that a man sold 45-cent beer to English…
I was in the Brazilian Amazon not long ago and on my plate, stuck into a piece of decoration fruit, was this little, pea sized, yellow bean. I thought it was a piece of the fruit and poked the bean on my fork and put it into my mouth, chewed,…
