Organ Grind: A South American Food Journal Part 3, Cock Soup at 11,000 Ft

Cusco’s Central Market

Large, central markets situated in cities with lax or non-existent health codes always make a strong impression upon the senses of smell and sight, and, if you’re  somewhat brave, taste.  Peru boasts many markets and most I’ve frequented are loose affairs; no one blinks an eye at seeing a cadre of beige mutts wrestling over a butcher’s offal down one aisle, and the strongest reaction you’re likely to notice from a person having just witnessed the al fresco execution and summary evisceration of a loudly protesting hog is a half-curious glance and a shrug.

Cusco is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the Americas and it shows; various cultural strata exist side-by-side in a hallucinatory jumble whose dizzying quality is heightened by the lung-deflating altitude.  Its Mercado Central de San Pedro is a pot boiling over with a wide variety of ingredients, both wearable and digestible. Rows and rows of women hawking colorful fabrics bleed into long counters serving five sol (about 2 dollars) meals like Sopa de Gallina (chicken soup) and Caldo de Lengua (beef tongue stew); a woman idly parting a trussed-up pig from its nutsack rubs shoulders with one offering fresh fruit smoothies with a bright smile and cheerful salutation.

Nice Soup Lady

While I’m known among family and friends as something of a masochist when it comes to eating weird shit, my friend and I invariably chose to break our fast with the simple and classic chicken soup.  It gets brownie points for freshness, too; the bird pecking at a stray bit of celery at your feet is likely in rotation for tomorrows pot. Behind the venerable matron briskly quartering luminous plucked fowl is a large cauldron of stock began the day before.

Typically varied list of soups

Other animal parts available in soups are tongue, stomach and head, if you find the noble and hearty chicken soup too quotidian.  In addition to a cheap and quick meal, you can also enjoy the sensation of being a pioneer on uncharted waters; my friend and I were often the only gringos eating at these market lunch counters.  And, when the novelty wears off or you get tired of the stench of your own self-satisfaction, they´re just comfortable spots to rest and partake of simple, unpretentious nutrition.

Mercado Central de San Pedro
Cusco, Peru