Choco Museo and Lunch in the Market

All last week, family friends from Lima were staying in with my host family in our house. There were four guests: Olga, Natalia, Nikolai, and Jose. Olga is Natalia's mom and is married to Nikolai. Jose is one of their friends. It was really fun to have them staying with us and definitely added some variety to my week! I spent many nights hanging out with them and talking about all sorts of random things. They shared many funny stories and told me that I have to come stay with them in Lima sometime.

They were here on vacation and did most of the typical tourist things while they were here. They went on various tours around Cusco and the Sacred Valley to visit many of the archaeological sites as well as Macchu Pichu, of course! Last Saturday, they were nice enough to include me in their plans for the afternoon and we had quite the adventure.

We went to San Pedro market in the early afternoon to explore... and eat lunch! One end of the market is dedicated to many booths that sell any sort of food you could imagine. They told me that markets typically sell the most delicious food of any restaurant and always have to best prices. After perusing the menu looking for something familiar, I ordered Lomo Saltado, which is a beef stir fry type dish with onions, peppers, rice, and French fries. The portion sizes were huge and my food was super delicious. Olga ordered Caldo de Cabeza, which literally is "Head Soup" and is not much different than what it sounds like. It basically was a bowl of broth with rice, potatoes, vegetables, and such... with a small cooked cow head sitting right in the middle of the bowl. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of it but did take a picture of my four friends from Lima.

From left to right, Natalia, Olga, Nikolai, and Jose

After eating lunch we wandered around the market for a while and explored all that it had to offer. Nikolai and Olga went crazy buying all sorts of odd souvenirs and gifts to take bake to Lima, including this lovely doll that they so thoughtfully bought for me. While I didn't pick it out, and normally wouldn't buy something like that for myself, it was very thoughtful and super sweet of them! They are very nice, lovely people!

After that, we went to the Choco Museo, which is a museum that features CHOCOLATE!!! There were various information booths that explained the entire chocolate-making process, all the way from the tree on which it grows to the final, delicious product.

This is a model of the cacao tree and the fruit that grows on it.

Inside the yellow and orange fruits are the cacao pods (on the right side of the picture below), which are toasted before the shells are removed. We tried some of these raw cacao pods and they taste like very dark, unsweetened chocolate. They were strong and I wouldn't want to eat a large amount of them but it was fun to try them!

We also got to watch while the chocolate was being made. After the cacao seeds were ground and combined with other ingredients like sugar and such, the chocolate was heated and cooled through a special tempering process. After being heated to a certain temperature, the workers poured the chocolate onto a marble slab and worked it until it reached the perfect temperature.

 When it was finally perfectly tempered, it was piped into molds that contained a variety of other products, such as almonds, coffee beans, salt, oreos, and aji, a spicy chili pepper. 

All of the chocolate was hand made from start to finish, including wrapping the chocolate in foil and packaging it.

We tried some of this delicious chocolate (with oreos!) and it was incredible! I am a huge chocolate fan and so of course I enjoyed the whole experience. We also tried cacao tea, which is tea brewed from the leaves of the cacao tree. Surprisingly, even the tea had somewhat of a chocolate flavor, although it was much more subtle than hot chocolate, for instance. 

Overall it was a very fun day and I was tired by the time we got home that night! It was especially tiring because it is said all people from Lima talk super fast and Olga, Natatlia, Nikolai, and Jose were no exception. It was a challenge and good practice to listen and understand so quickly but it tired out my brain!