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Chochos and the Andean Grains

Tarwi

Specialised

CHOCHO (Lupinus mutabilis, tarwi elsewhere in the Andes) is a high-protein lupin that is BITTER AND TOXIC UNTIL PROCESSED โ€” boiled then washed in running water for days to leach the alkaloids, a technique that is pre-Columbian and indispensable. Eaten as ceviche de chochos with tostado and onion, sold from street carts. Beside it: QUINOA, whose modern export boom raised prices for the growers and the eaters both; AMARANTH; and the Andean tubers MELLOCO (ulluco), OCA and MASHUA โ€” all of them crops the Columbian exchange never carried away and which are now being revived. โš  THE PROCESSING IS THE POINT, and this is a description, not an instruction.

Atlas โ€” where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

Languages: Spanish, Imbabura Highland Quichua

What is recorded

  • Lupinus mutabilis (chocho, tarwi) contains quinolizidine alkaloids and is toxic until debittered by boiling and prolonged washing in running water. The technique is pre-Columbian and specific. It is recorded as a described practice and is not reproduced here as a method. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • related to Bolivian Cuisine documented

    Tarwi/chocho, quinoa, oca, mashua and ulluco are the shared Andean crop complex.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.