Teresa Ocampo
Peruvian cook, gastronomy writer and cookbook author
Biography
Teresa Ocampo Oliart, born in Cusco on 13 October 1931, is one of the pioneers in spreading Peruvian gastronomy. She founded the Peruvian Gastronomic Association (Agape), predecessor of APEGA Sociedad Peruana de Gastronomía, and served as its first president. Her work on television and in publishing made her a reference for several generations of cooks and readers.
She was born at the Granja Escuela K'ayra estate, southeast of Cusco. When she was four, her family moved to Lima and settled in the city centre, where they lived for fifteen years before relocating to Miraflores. There her mother, Carlota Oliart, began teaching home cooking to neighbourhood women, and Teresa assisted her. Both had trained in Europe, and Teresa studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. In 1952 she started teaching cookery at the Instituto de Ciencias Domésticas Bien del Hogar.
From 1959 she took part in the television programme ¿Qué cocinaré?, first as an adviser and later as a presenter, where she championed national cuisine using local produce and affordable ingredients. After stepping back in 1968, she returned to screens with her own shows, and in 1987 she co-founded Agape. She later moved to the United States and now lives in Dallas.
Her legacy lives on in her cookbooks and in the honours she received in Peru, including the Ají de Plata in 2009 and the Order of Merit in 2017.
Key contributions
- Championing Peruvian cuisine on television through local ingredients and traditional recipes, at a time when national cooking had little visibility.
- The programme ¿Qué cocinaré?, an early example of culinary television in Peru.
- Founding and presiding over Agape, which promoted Peruvian food at international fairs and festivals.
- The cookbook ¿Qué cocinaré hoy?, linked to her first television show.
- The book Su majestad el pescado, devoted to fish cookery.
- La cocina de Teresa, one of Peru's first independent television programmes, which gave airtime to fusion cooking such as chifa.