When Gastón Acurio, the Peruvian chef who has been leading his country’s culinary boom, was invited to open the academic year at Lima’s top university in 2006, many academics grumbled. Why was a cook being asked to give a landmark lecture at a temple of knowledge?
The lecture, however, highlighted how food has become a trailblazer for national pride in Peru as well as an engine for tourism, the restaurant business, agriculture and fisheries.
According to Apega, Peru’s gastronomic society, the food industry has been growing at an average rate of 7-8 per cent in recent years, while the number of restaurants has more than doubled from 45,000 in 2005 to 100,000 in 2013. Some 5.5m Peruvians benefit directly or indirectly from the industry.