The Food of Bolivia 137Fricasé is a pork soup, quite similar to the Mexican pozole,
including hominy and seasoned with garlic and ground yellow
ají. The ají makes the difference.
Chicharrón is pork fried in its own juice with a distinct
crispy taste served with hominy.
If you enjoy the crunchy chicharrón but need to avoid
pork, there is the chicken substitute called chicharrón de
pollo. Chicharrón in the Andean countries should not be
confused with a Mexican food of the same name consisting
of pork skin.
Lechón is a baked suckling pig, seasoned Bolivian style with
red ají, garlic and cumin, and served with white potatoes,
sweet potatoes and bananas, all baked, and accompanied
with thinly cut lettuce, tomato and llajua.
The adventurous eater also fi nds various tongue and lamb
dishes with distinctive sauces. Animal innards are used in
various typical dishes. My favourite is panza (stomach) cooked
with yellow ají sauce, although in restaurants, panza a la
romana is more popular. Panza may be purchased pre-cooked
in markets. Otherwise, it takes hours to boil.
Especially popular in warmer climates, as sides to meat
dishes, are yuca (a tuber) and cooked or fried banana.
Wine
Wine does not usually accompany food. Those few Bolivians who
take wine with a meal often sacrifi ce their principles and allow
a superb Chilean wine on their dinner table. In blindfolded wine
tasting tests, Bolivian wines from the Tarija area perform at a
higher level than their expectation, and I’ve even served
the Tarija product to demanding French wine lovers, who were
rather pleased.There’s not much to be disappointed about when it comes
to Bolivian food, though sweetbread hedonists may long for
a Euro pastry that melts in their mouth.
These are but a few representative Bolivian dishes, part
of a surprisingly inventive and varied cuisine. Bolivia’s
legendary biodiversity works in her favour for providing fresh