For these next few posts I wanted to take some time to highlight some foods that have impacted my life to the world of food and culture. As a person who is Dominican, Puerto Rican, Ecuadorian, and Peruvian there have been many foods that I have been exposed to respective with the nations that my family comes. It has made my food palate a very colorful and flavorful one and I thought that it would be refreshing to look at particular dishes that I grew up eating and loving. For this first post, in what I call it the “Food Special Series,” I am looking at a Peruvian dish that is well known and this is Peruvian Ceviche. Of course, there are many other cultures that have their own version of ceviche. Ceviche can be found in Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Mexico, and even the Philippines which is amazing to see (Kudra). Despite the many places that ceviche has found a home in South American and Asian cooking, ceviche’s motherland home is Peru itself.
I haven’t had some homemade ceviche in a really long time and part of it is because once it is made you have to eat it then and there. If there is something that I can ssaay about this meal that I love it has to be the way the lime juice complements and “cooks” the raw fish. When I was younger I thought that the raw fish would not go well with me, but when I tried my grandma’s ceviche for the first time I fell in love and asked for more. What makes ceviche an interesting meal is due to the fact that it can be prepared in different ways. This speaks plenty to how many other cultures have adopted ceviche into their home cooking. In the video above, Helen Rennie is preparing a more simpler iteration of ceviche, but as she says in the video it can be prepared in various ways. This ceviche looks very similar to how my grandma has made it, and I think the reason as to why she hasn’t made it in awhile you have to be there to eat it once its been made. I think the next time that I see my grandma — hopefully soon given the current outbreak situation — so I can enjoy some homemade ceviche made with love.
Works Cited:
Kudra, Christine Szalay “Different Types of Ceviche.” Seasoned Cooking, seasoned.com/blog/2010/08/different-types-ceviche.
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