Gaston Acurio’s 18-course tasting menu

No doubt if you know me and my site you also know that I am not a fan of molecular or fusion food in general but my recent meal tracing the history of food in Peru through its ingredients at Gaston Acurio’s, Gaston and Astrid gave me pause.  Not only was it beautiful but the flavors actually came together beautifully in most of the dishes despite the precious razzle-dazzle. It’s true what they say that people usually only remember the first and the last taste which is why it is so important to have good bread (or corn chips) and great coffee.  In this case the first course called La Naturaleza was the spectacular  nest above held five different flavor  sensations:

And Gaston knows what he’s doing. This is not just a tasting menu, it’s a production with specially crafted serving pieces, a hand hewn book with wonderful reproductions of paintings illustrating whatever phrase the author has chosen to capture a period in the history of Peru.  A sheet of onion skin paper protects each illustration, like in olden times.  A Cd  in a  back pocket of the book reinforces the mood and hints at the genesis of  this project,  Gaston is very committed to sustainable agriculture and all the right things. If anyone exemplifies my favorite Tom Waits quote: The way you do anything is the way you do everything”, it’s him.

El Hombre (Man) was next in the form of wild tomatoes (Solanum Pimpinelifolium) with purslane.

 

Papa Huamantanga (solanum tuberosum cv. huamantanga) Potatoes, rocoto chiles and pine mushrooms.

Pallar (Phaeous lunatus), red oxalis (Oxalidaceae) sorrel and a concentrated stock.. I think that this is the wrong photo so please correct me if you know.

 

Choclo (Zaa mays raza Cusco gigante versus blanco de Urubamba), Bahia clam,oil and cilantro

El encuentro: Ceviche de carretilla made with pejerey (Odontesthes regia) , fish, clams, sea urchin, sea conch

Crudo: It’s called crudo which means raw but it seemed cooked to me unless I go some of the pictures out of order. Thee were so many dishes! Ingrediens are fiah o the day, artichokes, leche de tigre (ceviche juice) and olives.

Revolcón Azul: Blue fish, mussels, aji amarillo,roasted onion and sea lettuce,

Mar Andino (Andean Sea), langoustines, potatoes, whey and fava beeans

El refugio -Dashi wins the “spectacular” prize: A stock or water is drawn into this Bunzon burner type contraption and flavored with the ingredients on op and then drips down and used as a soup with the ingredients below.

Grilled octopus, black sesame seeds, Japanese turnip, avocado and red shiso. This dish obviously reflects the Japanese influence on the cuisine that I thought was more extensive that what I could discern.

 

Cuy Pekin; They eat guinea pigs in Peru and this one is made Peking-style. I’m sorry to disappoint you all but NO I did  not taste the cuy  as it is known, and avoided both the llama and the alpaca as well. If that makes me a lesser chef,well so be it! Speaking of cuy , there was a charming painting of The Last Supper at the Cathedral in Cusco that featured a roasted cuy at the center and chicha, a local non-alcoholic drink instead of wine!

Carbonara: This is a decstructed cabonara that as quite interesting and came together beautifully in the mouth.

Secretos del Cerdo is a surprising dessert made with crispy pork, native potatoes, peanuts and chocolate

Manjar de Chirimoja,  bizcocho crocante y naranja

Paletas de Lucuma: Lucuma popsicles come in a tin box like they are sold at the beach but Gaston’s wife Astrid has created one of the most fabulous taste and texture sensations ever. Besides everything else, Gaston and Astrid own a chocolate factory and have developed a hardy strain of cacao but also brought back an heirloom breed and they combine them to make this wonderful chocolate you see here. You take the frozen popsicle, dip it into the rich hot chocolate and it hardens sort of like in Dairy Queen’s Brown Cow cones but a million times better. I don’t like desserts but this one bowled me over.

Beso de Moza-My least favorite. In Mexico we call meringues like this “suspiros’ which means “sighs” and , believe me, we all breathed a sigh of relief to know that this was the last dish but the petit-fours were delicious too.