Carapulca in the Style of Valle de Chacaltana (Carapulca á la Valle de Chacaltana)

History

Carapulca — more often carapulcra in Peru — is a stew built on papa seca, the Andean dried potato: boiled tubers cut up and dried, a preservation method Andean peoples have used for centuries. The name traces to the Aymara and Quechua qala phurk'a, 'a stew made with hot stones,' and the dish is generally described as an ancient Andean one, pre-Columbian in root, that in early times would have been made with llama or alpaca meat alongside the dried potato. After the Spanish arrival those native meats gave way to pork, and it is pork that anchors this version. The other defining element, the ground peanut stirred in at the end, is likewise native to the Americas; popular food histories of the dish credit African and Afro-Peruvian cooks with making the peanut integral, though that attribution comes from culinary writing rather than from a scholarly study of this recipe.

Josefina del Valle de Chacaltana contributed the recipe from Buenos Aires, and its most telling detail is a displacement: she gives the Lima method in full — a pound of lightly toasted, ground papa seca cooked in water, well-fatted pork, a sauce of onion, tomato, garlic and ten ground ajies (or a spoon of paprika where no aji can be had), and half a pound of toasted, finely ground peanut let down in pork broth — then notes that, papa seca being unavailable in Buenos Aires, chestnut stands in for it 'with nearly the same flavor.' The optional additions she allows, poultry and grated lard biscuits, sit at the edges of the dish rather than at its heart. What the recipe cannot tell us is how far back this particular household version reaches, or whether it belongs to the coastal, Chincha-centered line of the dish or an inland one; the '(national dish)' framing is the contributor's own pride, and the peanut's Afro-Peruvian lineage, real as the thesis is, is not documented at the level of this single Gorriti entry.

Ingredients

• 1 lb papa seca (dried potato), lightly toasted and ground
• 1/2 lb chancho (pork), well-fatted
• 1/2 lb chancho (pork) fat
• 2 large onions, well chopped
• 2 tomatoes, cut small
• 1 clove garlic
• 10 ajíes (Andean chili peppers), ground
• salt
• 1/2 lb maní (peanuts), toasted, finely ground
• pork broth (caldo de chancho)
• chestnut (castaña)
• poultry (turkey, hen, or squab)
• grated lard biscuits (rosquitas de manteca ralladas)

Instructions

1. Cook a pound of lightly toasted, ground papa seca in water; separately cook half a pound of well-fatted pork.
2. In half a pound of boiling pork fat, fry two chopped onions, two small-cut tomatoes, a garlic clove, and ten ground ajíes (or 1 tsp pimentón), with salt to taste.
3. When the sauce is cooked, add the cooked papa seca and the pork cut in pieces; boil together a while.
4. Before removing from the fire, stir in half a pound of finely ground toasted maní dissolved in a cup of pork broth.
5. In Buenos Aires substitute chestnut for the papa seca; optionally add poultry (turkey, hen, squab) and grated lard biscuits.