Panchamanca and Passing the Cuy

Panchamanca is an very old, traditional Peruvian way of cooking. Basically it’s a whole bunch of food cooked in the ground with a bunch of hot stones. Peruvians love it, and they make it when ever there is a special occasion, or even just a big group of people, really just whenever they have an excuse to. At the training center today our excuse was to learn about Peruvian culture so in addition to preparing a Panchamanca we also learned about ancient medicinal customs that Peruvians still practice today.

To make a Panchamanca, first you dig a big hole in the ground. Probably about 2.5 ft in diameter and 2-3 ft deep. You make a fire and let it burn while you heat up a bunch of large rocks. When the fire settles to be mostly coals, you remove the rocks and start piling food on the fire. Start with greens to make a base to set the food (cilantro, mint, I don’t know what else), then you pile on a ton of chicken, potatoes, then more greens, some hot rocks, apples, pineapples, humitas (sweet tamales), a whole bunch of green beans, some eggs, and finally cover it with more greens and the rest of the hot rocks. Then, take all the dirt you dug out of the hole and bury the hole thing. Top it off with a blessing, a cross and some flowers and in about 30 minutes you have lunch! I didn’t eat any of the chicken but I heard it was delicious. When I come back to the states in two years we’ll have a big party and make a big Panchamanca for everybody!

Ancient medical traditions…. So remember how I told you about cuyes? The cute little guinea pigs they eat here? Well, in Peru when someone is sick for a long time and the doctor can’t figure out why, they perform a ritual called “passing the cuy”. Basically how it works is the sick person lies down and the, I don’t know what you’d call them, witch doctor?, takes a cuy in his hands holding it over the sick persons body, and passes it over all parts of the body. At some point during this process the cuy mysteriously dies – don’t ask me how – they claim they don’t kill it. They take the dead cuy and cut it open to see what is wrong with the cuy, kind of like an autopsy. Supposedly what ever illness they find in the cuy, was what the sick person had and in this ceremony, they magically passed it on to the cuy and now the sick person is healed. For example, they might cut the cuy open and see that the cuy’s stomach is black and shriveled up. That means the sick person had a stomach problem but now passed it onto the cuy and that illness is what “magically” made the cuy die and the person healthy. Make any sense? Believe in it? I’m not sure I do but I’ve met a bunch of Peruvians that swear by it. If you’re skeptical, you can try the same thing with a raw egg still in its shell. After you pass the egg across the body you crack it open into a glass of water and supposedly part of the egg yolk will have cooked and it will be white. Apparently the white part of the egg signifies the part of the body you have a problem with. In reality, who knows? That’s what we watched today and part of the egg did turn white, but I can’t say believe it was because the ailment of a person was transferred to the egg. Why don’t you give it a try next time you’re sick?