Purple Corn Mazamorra (Mazamorra Morada)

History

Mazamorra morada is a deep-purple fruit pudding built on maíz morado — a Peruvian variety of maize whose kernels are naturally violet, rich in the anthocyanin pigment that dyes the whole dish. That corn is not a colonial import but a native Andean crop, grown across the highlands of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador and consumed there since long before the Inca Empire, so its presence in a Peruvian dessert is ancestral rather than anachronistic. The same purple corn underpins the drink chicha morada, and mazamorra morada is in effect its thickened, fruit-laden cousin: boil the corn to draw out its color, bind the liquid with a starch such as sweet-potato flour, and fold in dried and fresh fruit.

The dish belongs above all to Lima, and to October. It is prepared especially for the celebrations of the Lord of Miracles (Señor de los Milagros), the great Lima devotion whose processions turn the month purple — a color the pudding shares by nature. That calendar tie is what makes the dessert as much a seasonal rite as a sweet.

Mercedes Canseco de Irigoyen's 1890 version, sent from Lima to Gorriti's pan–South American compilation, is a faithful early witness to this preparation. She cooks the shelled purple corn together with its stripped cobs — the maslos, or corontas — for four hours precisely so kernels and cobs surrender all their tint, then strains the liquor and cooks it down with peeled pineapple, dried guindas (sour cherries), pitted dried peaches, slivers of quince, and sugar. Sweet-potato or camote starch, slaked in the purple water and stirred in spoonful by spoonful against lumps, brings the mazamorra to the set of manjar blanco or dulce de leche, and a spoonful of lemon juice goes in just before it leaves the fire. Her fruit — pineapple, sour cherry, peach, quince — and her camote-starch binder sit squarely within the documented dish; what her page does not call for is the cinnamon and clove that scent many later versions, a plain reminder that the recipe records one Lima cook's hand rather than a fixed formula. The entry names the contributor and her city but not where she learned the dish or why she thought it worth the four-hour boil she plainly did — silences the page leaves unfilled.

Ingredients

• purple corn (maíz morado), shelled
• corn cobs (maslos / corontas)
• 6-8 trozos (pieces) pineapple (piña / ananá) with its skin
• 2 docenas (dozens) dried sour cherries (guindas secas)
• dried peaches (duraznos secos), pitted
• quince (membrillo), in slivers
• sugar
• sweet potato or camote starch (almidón)
• 1 cucharada (spoonful) lemon juice (zumo de limón)

Instructions

1. Cook the shelled purple corn with its cobs, 6-8 pieces of pineapple with skin, and 2 dozen dried sour cherries in plenty of water for four hours until deeply purple; strain.
2. Boil part of the purple liquid in an enameled pot with sliced peeled pineapple, dried sour cherries, pitted dried peaches, quince slivers, and enough sugar; boil until well cooked.
3. Dissolve sweet-potato or camote starch in the purple water and add it little by little, stirring constantly to avoid lumps.
4. Cook, stirring, until it sets like manjar blanco or dulce de leche.
5. Just before removing from the heat, stir in a spoonful of lemon juice.