Peru

Sunday

Max Horder

The long history of kidnapping Latin American chieftains

One of the few benefits of being an anthropologist is the uncanny exhilaration one feels watching novel current events as re-runs from previous episodes in the history of mankind. Donald Trump’s capture of Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela, is no exception. Kidnapping Latin American emperors is a continental tradition. It’s simply the most practical method for breaking the chain of command in the region. It triggers succession chaos, enables the extraction of resources and keeps the rest of the hierarchy more or less intact. In earlier centuries, it was Spain and Portugal. Today, it’s the United States. In the colonial era, the objective was to secure enough gold to beat European rivals.

latin american

Tuesday

Marc Oestreich

Beneath the foam of the Pisco Sour cocktail lies a border feud

The Pisco Sour is poured by Maria, my business partner’s wife and the quiet boss of a small empire of bars and restaurants. It is served in the living room, the windows cracked open, friends drifting in and out, the kids out of school. It has rained and something in the air has lifted. Then comes the coupe glass: perfectly chilled, capped in silken foam, dots of bitters shaped like a closing parenthesis. I’ve had Pisco Sours before. But this one makes sense. In Peru, the drink is practically sacred, served at protests and presidential inaugurations alike The ingredients shouldn’t work – harsh grape brandy, raw citrus, egg – but in the glass, they harmonize. Chocolate at the edge, grape in the middle, something like spring itself underneath.

pisco sour

Tuesday

Juan P. Villasmil

Why Washington should make Latin America a priority

As American eyes remain fixed on the Middle East — understandably so — China has been rolling out the red carpet for Latin America, and we have barely noticed. While Xi Jinping welcomes Colombia, one of Washington’s historically reliable allies, into the controversial Belt and Road Initiative, he’s also introducing visa-free entry for South America’s largest economies and greeting regional leaders in Beijing with billion-dollar credit lines and lavish, all-expenses-paid political junkets. Washington, meanwhile, was… busy. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. The US has been snoozing through Latin America’s strategic realignment for years, occasionally waking up to mutter something about narcos or illegal migration, then hitting the snooze button.

washington

Monday

Casey Chalk

You know when you’ve been ‘Peru’d’

"Did you get Peru'd?" That's the question my boss, who once lived there, always asks people when they return. The idiom implies that something has gone terribly wrong, because, so my boss argues, that's inevitable during a visit to the land of the Inca. Lost luggage, food poisoning, petty theft: all of them, or worse, constitute being "Peru'd." During a recent happy hour, a colleague was describing how much she enjoyed her recent vacation to Lima and Cuzco. “Did you get Peru’d?” my boss queried. No, the woman asserted, she did not; it was a lovely trip. Another colleague piped in: “But didn’t you get Covid?” Well, yes, that’s true, she did get Covid. “You got Peru’d,” my boss decreed.

Peru

Thursday

John Pietro

Democracy in Peru is under attack

For over a month, Peru has been in a state of near-constant unrest. In December, as the legislature threatened to impeach President Pedro Castillo for, among other things, allegations of corruption, Castillo tried to dissolve the legislature and “govern through decrees.” By all measures, this was an attempted coup, and it resulted in his impeachment (by a vote of 101-6), arrest, and condemnation from left and right. In his place, Vice President Dina Boluarte was sworn in as president, having denounced her former boss’s attack on the country’s democracy. This was a success in a country that has seen six new presidents in the past seven calendar years. The Congress has repeatedly been at odds with the president, and scandals have rocked administration after administration.

Thursday

Ben Kew

The Pink Tide returns to Latin America

As the dust settled on Jair Bolsonaro’s seismic victory in Brazil back in 2018, one might have spared a thought for those dedicated to the cause of international socialism. Having bathed in the glory of the so-called "Pink Tide" and the commodities boom of the early 2000s that allowed socialist governments such as Hugo Chávez's Venezuela to seemingly prosper, any hopes that Latin America would forever unify in the cause of left-wing anti-imperialism seemed well and truly dashed. In many of the continent’s wealthiest countries, right-of-center politicians had swept to power with a view to restoring their nation’s former glory. These included Bolsonaro in Brazil, Sebastian Piñera in Chile, Ivan Duque in Colombia, and Mauricio Macri in Argentina, among others.

Thursday

Lauren Hill

From Ceviche to Causa: a guide to Peruvian food

Peruvian cuisine is the ultimate cultural melting pot: from the traditions of indigenous Andean and Amazonian cultures to the influence of Spanish conquistadors, African slaves and immigrants from Europe and Asia. Popular sub categories continue to emerge such as the Chinese-Peruvian fusion, Chifa, and Japanese-Peruvian Nikkei cuisine. The most famous dishes comprise ingredients from the country’s multitude of dramatically different microclimates, with more than 3,000 types of potatoes in array of colors and shapes growing alongside corn linking back to the Incas’ agricultural legacy.

peruvian