Nikkei cuisine

Nikkei cuisine is a fusion tradition that blends Japanese techniques and ingredients with Peruvian produce. Its name comes from the word used for Japanese immigrants in Peru and their descendants, and its growth has made it one of the best-known Peruvian cuisines abroad.

History

Japanese presence in Peru began in 1889, when the first immigrants arrived during the modernising Meiji era in Japan. Many worked on the sugar haciendas of the northern coast, where they lived alongside the established Chinese community, which supplied soy sauce and several Asian vegetables.

The first blends appeared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Over time, some immigrants ran Creole food stalls, where shoyu and miso found their way into stews and ceviches. In the mid-twentieth century, Minoru Kunigami, a second-generation nikkei, opened La Buena Muerte in Lima, a ceviche house regarded as the first nikkei establishment, and the style became established in the 1980s and 1990s. International visibility then grew, helped by chef Nobu Matsuhisa's restaurants abroad.

Culture

Nikkei cooking reflects the identity of Peru's Japanese-descended communities, who have woven chilli, rocoto, lime and Peruvian seafood into their recipes. Tiradito, thin-sliced raw fish cured in citrus, joins sashimi technique with Peruvian heat. Other characteristic dishes include sudado de pescado, octopus with olive sauce and acevichado sushi. Today it appears in restaurants worldwide and forms part of the dining scene in Peru's major cities.