Peruvian Food History

Historical period

Some of the earliest agriculture and monumental architecture in the Americas — Caral on the coast from around 2600 BC; the Moche, Nazca, Wari and Chimú, each with distinct agricultural and irrigation systems; the INCA state from the 15th century, with its terracing, qollqa storehouses, road system and redistribution — ⚠ one Andean polity among many, not the whole of Indigenous Peru; the Spanish conquest and the Columbian exchange running both ways; the Potosí silver economy and the food supply it demanded; African enslavement; independence in 1821; Chinese indenture from 1849 and Japanese migration from 1899; the guano and anchoveta booms; internal migration from the sierra to Lima that made the modern capital; and the culinary revival from the 1990s.