We’re leaving the Peruvian coasts and traveling upwards. Inland to the east, the land immediately rises into the Andes Mountains, where a more diverse array of crops could be grown, among them avocados and chili peppers. Travel even higher, and you encounter the pseudo-grains, most prolifically quinoa, which was grown together with maize in the same field.
So I put all those ingredients in a salad. This quinoa and corn was actually purchased in Cusco, Peru.
Sumer was the oldest urban civilization, but not by much. Second place followed quickly, and incredibly was across the ocean in South America.
People on the coast of modern Peru kickstarted a multi-millennium wave of Andean civilization, passing down a legacy of culture, religion, and cuisine all the way down to the Incas, and do so with methods that will turn everything anthropologists thought they knew about civilization on its head.
We’ve neglected the Andeans thus far, but no longer. It’s time to take a closer look.
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ANTHROCHEF 