Anticucho

Anticucho is a skewered meat dish, usually beef heart, grilled on a stick and closely linked to Peruvian street food. Over time it spread to other Andean and Southern Cone countries, where it developed its own variations.

History

The name seems to come from the Quechua antikuchu, related to cutting meat, although its etymology is not entirely certain. Its precursor is usually placed in the pre-Columbian Andes, when llama meat was grilled. After the Spanish arrived, beef and garlic largely replaced llama, and wine or chicha entered the marinades, according to different accounts.

Spanish cooking, used to making the most of the whole animal, coexisted with a colonial practice: offal that the Spanish discarded was given to enslaved Africans, who incorporated it into their own cooking. Pancho Fierro drew street vendors in the mid-nineteenth century, and Ricardo Palma recorded them in his Tradiciones peruanas (1883) under the name bisteque en palito. During the twentieth century the dish spread to Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Ecuador, where it changed name and form.

Culture

In Peru the beef heart version remains common, marinated with ají panca, cumin and vinegar, and its consumption rises in October during the Señor de los Milagros festivities. In Bolivia it is usually served with boiled potatoes and peanut llajua, and sold mainly at night. In Chile, the common anticucho includes sausages and vegetables and is part of the fondas of Fiestas Patrias. In Jujuy, in northern Argentina, it is eaten during national holidays and popular celebrations.

Trivia