Culture Shock! Bolivia - A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette

The Food of Bolivia 135

Afternoon snacks include less spicy empanadas (small
cheese pies), humintas which are similar to Mexican tamales
but use fresh corn rather than cornmeal, and cuñapés, a
mixture of yuca meal and melted cheese.

Soups

Bolivian soups precede the main dish for lunch, but are
nutritious enough to constitute a meal in themselves. Quinoa
(the Bolivian supergrain), trigo (wheat) and maní (ground raw
white peanuts) and an array of vegetables are the base foods
for incredibly savoury soups which will not depend on an
acquired taste to appreciate.

Jaconta

Jaconta is a soup made with knots of the lamb spine, cooked

with rice, whole chuños (small black dried potatoes), chunks of

cabbage, a few slices of carrot, diced onions, oregano and sal.

Fish

Pejerrey (kingfi sh) is a delicious white fi sh from Lake Titicaca,
a product of forced migration from Canada. One method of
preparing it is to bread it and lightly pan fry. Pejerrey a la
romana is dipped in batter with garlic, pepper and salt, fried,
then served with broiled potato and cooked vegetables and/
or green salad with tomatoes.
Other popular fi sh dishes are huge trouts and surubí
(brought from Beni area rivers). Trout is either pink or white.
Surubí has the texture of chicken breast with a fi shy fl avour.
Both can be cooked and served the same as pejerrey.
There are other trout recipes, broiled, grilled or oven-
cooked, with various sauces. Surubí is just as tasty when
oven cooked. Ispi, only from Lake Titicaca, is a tiny fi sh that
used to be a primary source of protein for the Incas. Ispi is
deep fried in oil or dried in brine.

Chicken

Chicken escabeche is a personal favourite, with a sauce of
onions, carrots, green peppers or locotos (if you like it hot)