Picarón

Picarón is a ring-shaped fried dessert made from a wheat flour dough with squash and, sometimes, sweet potato, coated in aromatic chancaca syrup. It is one of the traditional sweets of Peruvian cuisine and also appears in Chilean cooking, where it is served in a related but distinct version.

History

Its roots lie in the Spanish buñuelo, a fried dough of Mediterranean origin with later Moorish influences that arrived in the Americas with the conquistadors. After colonization, frying doughs spread across the Spanish empire and took on local forms depending on the ingredients and habits of each territory.

In the Viceroyalty of Peru, Black and mulatto cooks adapted the recipe by combining Indigenous ingredients such as sweet potato and squash with products brought by the Spanish, like wheat flour and chancaca. Picarones were sold in Lima's streets by vendors calling out their wares, and they were also offered at religious processions such as that of the Lord of Miracles. In the early years of the republic, they were widely eaten in the capital.

In Chile, an early record places the dessert in the Plaza de Armas in Santiago before 1810, in the memoirs of José Zapiola. Over time the Chilean preparation came to differ from the Peruvian one in its dough and in a spiced chancaca sauce thickened with cornstarch.

Culture

In Lima, the picarón remains one of the city's most popular desserts and is still sold from street stalls. Festivals and contests devoted to this fritter are held, and it remains highly visible in the city's everyday and festive life.

The Peruvian version uses a fermented dough of wheat flour, yeast, and precooked sweet potato and squash, with the vegetable cooking water scented with aniseed. After frying, the chancaca syrup is flavored with fig leaves, cinnamon, aniseed, clove, and orange peel.

In Chile, the dough contains precooked squash and a pinch of sugar, and the fried rings are coated in a thick sauce of chancaca thickened with cornstarch. They are eaten warm, especially in winter, at teatime, which Chileans call «las once».