Diario las Américas Newspaper, March 3, 1957, Page 10

SHKESRHSRHAHHHHHAHH AHHH By ARMANDO SEGRI I SHALL NEVER FORGET my first crossing of Lake Tticaca, from Puno in Peri to Guaqui in Bolivia, aboard the steamboat Inca, for it served as my introduction to the art of eating well in Latin America. I was returning to Chile after an absence of more than ten years, traveling by way of Ecuador, Jeru, Bolivia, and Argentina. For me, the journey held all the emotion of re- discovery. Even the most familiar things seemed surprisingly new. We left the Juliaca wharf in Pu- no at dusk for an overnight run. The Inca was a small vessel, with berths for eight passengers, and she carried a full load this trip. Once you stepped out of your state- room, you found yourself on deck, and the limited space soon pro- duced the effect of traveling as a family group. The steward had per- sonally welcomed everyone aboard and made them feel at home. I jotted down his name, Inocencio Mamani. He was a_pure-blooded Peruvian Indian, and you can see hundreds of heads just like his on the Inca pottery in the Anthro- pology Museum in Lima. He said he was a poet, and he kept an album of signatures and dedica- tions — most of them in verse. He brought it around to my cabin to show to me and add my saluta- tion. On one page, in the midst of a forest of flourishes, the signature “Edward, Prince of Wales” stood out boldly. Because it was some important anniversary — I don’t remember which — Mamani announced we would have a special dinner that night. All the passengers went down to the dining room together, and he assigned us our seats. There were two large tables, one for the officers and the other for the passengers, A Spanish architect sat at the head of our table. He was on his ‘way to a construction job in Boli- via, accompanied by his wife and daughter. On his right was an Ar- gentine landowner returning to Buenos Aires from a_ business trip to Ecuador and Colombia. Next in line, a U. S. schoolteacher who was taking advantage of her sabba- tical leave to make an extensive tour of Latin America. Opposite, a genuine gaucho with his coltskin boots, the big belt buckle called a rastra, and bombachas, the char- acteristic loose trousers fastened at the bottom; a lad from Cuzco who was going to study at the Univer- sity of Mar del Plata in Argentina; and me. I had had a chance to chat with the gaucho a while on deck. He was reserved by nature and at first limited himself to laconic an- swers to the usual questions you ask to get a shipboard conversa- tion started: Where do you come from? Where are you going? How do you like the Jandscape? He told me he had just delivered a drove of Argentine horses in northern Pert. He said he worked on the farm of Ricardo Giiiral- des’ family. When I remarked that I considered Giiiraldes’ novel Don Segundo Sombra the epic story of the gaucho and the pampas, his at- titude warmed considerably. In his youth he had known the famous author, and he remembered him with deep respect. He asked me to try to visit the farm, where they kept a sort of museum of Giiiral- des’ personal possessions when I went to Buenos Aires. While the first course of assort- ed cold cuts was being served, we asked the steward to bring us a bot- tle of pisco to make a toast for the occasion. Peruvian pisco, a pure grape liquor, is a concoction creat- ed to combat and conquer cold and the oppressive effect of high alti- tude. We offered this by way of explantion to the U. S. school- teacher, but after one whiff, she roundly refused to taste it. She had brought a bottle of ginger ale to the table with her, from the almost full case of it in her luggage. Leery of the local water, she had stocked up on this substitute when she left the Grace Line steamer at Callao for Cuzco, Lake Titicaca, and points beyond. From Bolivia she planned to go on to Chile by rail and em- bark on another Grace liner in Antofagasta. She figured her supply of ginger ale would last till then. After the cold plate, they served us a native soup with pieces of yuca and ears of that corn with huge, transparent grains that you find only high in the Andes. Then Lake Titicaca trout, beefsteak to order, dessert, and coffee. With the libations of pisco and the cumulative-effect of the food, conversation had become gener- al and jolly. The Argentine land- owner scarcely tasted most of the courses that preceded the beef- steak. The U. S. schoolteacher meticulously separated and set aside anything that was green leaf or starchy vegetable. Before touch- ing the trout she asked whether it had been broiled or fried. She hat- ed fried foods. With a gesture of horror, she rejected a renewed in- vitation to try the pisco. “It’s poison. It’s poison,” she re- peated. When we ordered our steaks, the Argentine declared that most peo- ple don’t know how to eat. “That is to say,” he added, “dinner is serv. ed backwards. Why? I can’t under- stand it. A bad habit, perhaps, that no one has tried to correct. Serving cold salad and soup before the beefsteak makes no sense at all. If the meat is the most important course logically we should serve it first. The soup should be left for the end, for those who are still hungry and want to fill their sto- machs with water.” The Yankee lady, in her school- teacher Spanish, maintained ** was not a question of order but one of balance. “You don’t know,” she went on, “what it is to enjoy a good salad as the main course of a THE WAYTOA TOURIST'S HEART Reprinted from AMERICAS, monthly magazine published by the Pan American Union in English, Spanish and Portu- guese, meal. You eall an assortment of cold cuts a salad. Then, without blinking, you will go so far as to combine in one single dish rice, beans, potatoes and fried bananas. To top it off, you drink this fire water, with great jubilation. All you need is to swallow a lighted match to cause an explosion. If I’m not mistaken, most of you will die of ulcers or diseases of the liver.” The gaucho smilingly remarked that the gringa was really simpa- tica. I suggested that the differenc eould be reduced te two different systems of philosophy: one consid- ered living and enjoying life of primordial importance, the other recognized the value of abstention with the aim of dying in good health. The Spanish architect was a de- votee of cocido (boiled meat and vegetables) and chickpeas Andalus- ian style. For the gaucho, there was nothing better than a barbecu- ed roast, and, for something spe- cial, asado con cuero (roast with hide). When we explained to the schoolteacher that this consisted in cooking a lamb or other animal in the open air, over a slow fire, re-covering it in its own skin so as not to lose a single drop of the meat juices, she could not keep from exclaiming: “Barbarians!” Hotel Victoria Plaza, in Montevideo, Uruguay, like fine hostelries all over the Americas, serves international cuisine. “That’s what I call cocido,” he de- clared. “More meat than cabbage and: potatoes. Vegetables just to give flavor to the meat and the broth just to keep it warm and juicy.” At the stewards’s suggestion, aft- er coffee we all adjourned to the Inca’s little salon on deck. The steward knew the student. from Cuzco well and asked him to sing something for us. In an easy, ex- pressive voice, the boy sang in steams out on Lake Titicaca, Quechua various yaravies and hua The student from Cuzco and I de ¥20S of the Peruvian sierra, ac- clared ourselves willing to eat any- of grass. companying himself admirably on : ; the guitar. Then typical waltzes thing , including U. S. salads made from the times coastal. region. At the steward, obviously The Argentine landowner advis- ™°Ved, joined in with the second ed the Spanish architect that if he Patt. had a chance to go to Buenos Ai- We had lost sight of Puno and res he shouldn’t miss trying the were sailing over the Andes, be- boiled dinner at the Espafiol re- tween sky and water, in this sea staurant on Avenida de Mayo. called Lake Titicaca. Perhaps the Argentines take pride is succulent meat, enjoy large-scale outdoor herheonte music helped to exaggerate the grandeur of the landscape, giv- ing it an extra sonic dimension, just as the whistling of the wind seems to add to its force. Weeks later, when I reached Buenos Aires, I did not forget the Argentine landowner’s recom- mendation; I went to lunch at the Espanol restaurant on Avenida de Mayo. The waiter asked me if I preferred the cocido of. chicken, and if some special The Inca, ship that started author on adventure in good eating, cut was my favorite. I settled on a Solomonic combination, explain- ing that I wanted to try a little of everything. While I was waiting for this, he suggested I have a drink —clery was the specialty of the house. It is made at the table by empty- ing a bottle of white wine into a jug containing cut-up fresh fruit, and then adding soda. The restaurant was full, mostly cS PAG. 10 HEMISPHERE SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 1987 “4 of beef or. SS een ict