Chicha: Nectar of the Incas

“Here and there we got huge glasses of chicha, the favorite native beverage, at a cent or two each. So many travelers have pictured the making of this by toothless old women chewing yuca and spitting it into a tub to ferment, that the impression should be corrected at the outset. That custom does exist, but it is found only among the untamed tribes of the upper reaches of the Amazon, scarcely trodden by one in ten thousand South American travelers. All down the great Andean chain this nectar of the Incas is made chiefly of maize, though also of other grains, berries, and of almost any vegetable matter that will ferment, by just as agreeable processes as any other cooking operation of the same region. The notion of cleanliness is, at best, rudimentary among the country people of South America, yet the brewing of chicha certainly compares favorably with the ways of our average cider-mill. A well-made chicha, indeed, resembles somewhat in taste the best cider, and is the surest thirst-quencher I have yet encountered, distinctly superior in this respect to beer. Many were the chicha recipes I gathered along the Andes. For the interest of those who wish to temper a hot summer day with an excellent heritage from the ancient Inca civilization, let me translate the most common one.

`Chicha de morocho:

Take hard, ripe corn (morocho is one of the several excellent species of maize that, like certain grades of the potato, has never been carried from its original Andean habitat to the rest of the world) shell, and boil for two hours. Let it cool, then grind, or crush under a stone, sprinkling from time to time with some of the water in which it has been boiled. Keep this mass in a well-covered jar. As it is needed, mix with water; one soupspoonful of the prepared mass to one liter of boiling water; add cloves, a very little vanilla, and as much sugar or rapadura as is considered necessary. Mix with an equal amount of cold water and place in jars to ferment. Once fermented, it is ready to serve.”

All this from Vagabonding Down the Andes, a book with an irresistible title that a couple of nights ago I pulled off the shelf that holds books for reading when nothing else entices. I’d picked it up second hand several years ago, a heavy 600 page tome published in 1920, but never really looked at it until now.

As always the sense of discovery has a way of evaporating when you google. There’s a wikipedia page dedicated to the author, Harry E Frank, and he even has a web page dedicated to him. An American as eccentric as any Englishman ever was, he made a living by books that described the walks he took around different bits of the world lugging the developing equipment for his camera with him. The Andes took four years.

Even if not quite the discovery I thought, Vagabonding is gripping reading.  Carefully observed, full of statements that drive home how sensitized to offense we have become. I loved this careful description of chicha making in the early years of the twentieth century.  South American food and drink is very little understood outside the regions in question and chicha which refers to all kinds of mildly alcoholic beverages is right at the top of the heap of confusion.

• ← Aguas frescas in the LA Times
• Spaghetti with gravy →