Airbnb Cooking Class in Cusco, Peru: Lomo Saltado and Aji de Gallina
Our trip to Peru coincided with Inti Raymi or Sun Festival, a weeklong celebration during the Winter Solstice that dates back to the Inca. Because of this, crowds in Cusco were at their peak and many streets were shut down for the near-constant parades. The city was alive— full of noise and color and the smells of street food roasting from stalls all around Plaza des Armas.
The cooking class we booked on Airbnb would take place in the historic district, just around the corner from the madness. The kitchen of the colonial house was warm and well-lit, a comfortable reprieve from the crowds (though midway through our class a parade would come roaring through the small street and we would all pause to stand outside and watch the giant effigies of saints come by carried on the backs of men).
Our host, Ronal, seemed kind but distracted. His reviews had been glowing, most people raved about his friendly and talkative personality, but as my partner and I tried to chat a little, his responses seemed genuine, but tinged with anxiety. His voice was soft and he spoke very quickly, almost visibly wringing his hands. My partner and I met eyes; should we be concerned for him?
When the full group of 10 had gotten settled, our host raised his voice only slightly to deliver a rapid fire list of our plan for the evening.
The class would consist of a tour through the San Andean markets to purchase ingredients for our meal and learn about the food customs and history of Cusco. We would taste some of the unique breads, cheeses, and fruits, make a fresh Pisco Sour, and cook a 2 course meal of Peruvian Ceviche with either Lomo Saltado or Aji de Gallina.
Having established the game plan and taken a count of how many people planned to make each of the main dish, Ronal led us back out onto the streets and took off into the crowd. You would have thought he was trying to lose us. He ducked and dove in between people like he had forgotten he was leading a pack of 10 tourists with no idea where we were going. Part of me was holding back laughter but the bigger part was focused on not twisting an ankle on the cobblestoned streets and trying to catch my breath without wheezing in thin, high-altitude air.
All of a sudden, we stopped short. Ronal had paused in front of a food stall with no warning and seemed almost surprised to see that any of us were still with him.
We were visiting Cusco at a fortuitous time for adventurous eaters. In addition to all the other chaos going on in Plaza des Armas, during Corpus Christi in June, it is traditional to eat Chiriuchu or “cold spice” in Quechuan. You may have heard of cuy a popular Peruvian dish of baked guinea pig, but chiriuchu takes it one step further, by mixing it with other meats, vegetables, and cheeses and then requiring it all to be eaten cold.
What that amounted to visually was thousands upon thousands of whole, roasted guinea pigs on sticks displayed for an entire city block’s worth of blue tents. Ronal explained the significance so quietly that I must not have heard a thing because I had to look up the significance to write this. Several websites claim that people from all over the world love it, but Ronal did not recommend we try it. He didn’t think our tourist bellies could handle it. As I was recently recovered from about 9 days of food poisoning, I was not about to test this.
Abruptly ending his speech, Ronal turned and ran off to the markets. Trying to keep up with a group of people we’d only known for a couple of minutes felt like a game. We were really working for our food tonight. And we still had to get back and cook it!
The market tour was actually pretty great. Although he did not slow down or speak up at any point, Ronal obviously knew the vendors in the markets personally and had great relationships with them. He smiled more, and seemed to enjoy answering questions about the food and the history of the markets, and especially making recommendations about ingredients or stalls to avoid or the best times to purchase.
The San Andean markets had the bread and cheeses we were going to taste back at the kitchen, but they also had row after row of souvenir trinkets, coffees, chocolates, nuts, juices, and animal parts. My partner and I had wandered the aisle before but they made more sense with Ronal’s guidance and we felt less overwhelmed with his explanations. I wished we had done this tour earlier.
We left the covered markets after walking through the butchery which was thick with flies and the smell of blood. My only recently recovered belly grumbled and I was thankful to return to the open air.
Ronal turned around and gave us a cursory glance before saying “Now, to the fruit markets,” and taking off again. Prepared this time, my partner and I held hands and took off at a jog.
The fruit and vegetable markets are not to be missed. They are a vibrant, orderly chaos and an experience for all of your senses. They are not part of the huge San Andean markets but further down some side streets where tourists are less likely to wander.
Ronal explained that it would take him a while to find the best fruits for us to try so we should explore, and meet him back there in 15 minutes. His carefree attitude about keeping up with his tour group made this a little alarming, but we had to use the bathroom anyway so used this time to do that and then hover nearby the meeting site, anxiously looking for his orange parka. For all his quirks, we were having fun.
Remarkably, all 10 of us made it back to the kitchen where we had certainly worked up an appetite. We all washed our hands and settled in while Ronal cut up some of the bread, cheese and fruit. All of them were amazing, but I was most impressed by fruits I had never encountered before like aguaymanto (a tart, cherry-like tomatillo), maracuya (passionfruit, but I had only ever had it in juices) and chirimoya (they are so strange and good, creamy and tropical, Mark Twain once called them “the most delicious fruit known to man”).
We made pisco sours from scratch and although they were probably delicious, I was not drinking alcohol and especially not egg foam after my stomach issues. I also didn’t eat very much of the ceviche, though I typically would’ve loved it.
For dinner I made the Aji de Gallina, a Peruvian chicken stew, and my partner made Lomo Saltado, a dish we had already had and loved with marinated beef, onions, and tomatoes. To say that we made them may be exaggerating the experience. As cooking classes go, this was not very hands on. We chopped some ingredients and took turns stirring rice around a pot, but the heavy lifting was done by Ronal or his badass sous chef who cooked, cleaned, and prepped all while carrying a child wrapped in a long scarf on her back.
Ronal came to life while cooking and talking about food. He finally admitted that he had been very stressed out all day because of the food festival and a lot of people from the gastronomical world in town, and he wasn’t feeling like himself.
He also revealed that he had little to no interest in tourism and found teaching these classes very difficult. He was a highly trained chef who had worked in many fine dining restaurants, but had somehow ended up teaching classes through Airbnb and similar sites.
“I had to change my whole personality to do this kind of work,” he said. I made a joke about Gordon Ramsey, but he hung his head solemnly, “Yes, I would yell in my kitchen as a chef. But I would never yell at one of you,” he added quickly. And he never did, though our group did try his patience with our knife handling.
I fully believe that Ronal is a wonderful and engaging host and he is definitely a talented chef, so I don’t want to criticize his business or disagree with the many, many glowing reviews he has accumulated! He seemed like a great guy and we left him a great review for leaving us with such a memorable night in Cusco.
Cooking classes are one of my favorite ways of discovering a new country. I recommend looking for an experience that includes a market tour, and doing it early in your trip so that you have a local’s introduction to the area and some of its most delicious foods.
