The kings of Chiclayan cuisine meet for the first time: what do they think about the new popularity of their tradition in the capital and what is their vision?

Although rivalry is a shadow that can appear between successful characters, they are both united by a friendship of years, which unites their families and which has motivated them to plan together for the first time a banquet on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of Pueblo Viejo.

– How did the idea of ​​this four-handed anniversary banquet come about?

Cecilia: My family and I discussed ideas on how to celebrate the restaurant’s five years in Lima and there was no agreement. One son thought one thing, the other son thought another. Until a suggestion came like a light, it was in unison: ‘How good it would be if you celebrated cooking with another Chiclayano.’ I’m not much of a four-hand cook. I don’t like it because it makes me change the format of my kitchen, it makes me subject myself to reductions and processes that don’t really go with my training as a cook, but the whole family said: ‘It has to be with Héctor’, who is also from Chiclayano, a brother.

-Where does that brotherhood with Héctor come from?

Cecilia: I admire him a lot. His talent is incredible, he and his family are an institution. I respect him a lot, I respect his cooking, but I also respect him and his family as human beings. Our friendship is not only with him, it comes from his parents and also from my husband to his parents. Furthermore, when I analyze Héctor’s training it is more or less like mine, which goes back to grandmothers and mothers. I remember my mother, who unfortunately died very young at 59, cooking. I remember lunches on my farm, because my dad took her to live in a town, and there she saw her cooking without shoes. That image marked me: my mother took off her shoes to cook and speed up and there was no one to stop her in the kitchen. I have seen her prepare ducks, prepare goat, then take out the intestines and make the chirimpico as an appetizer or a humita there. So, I told myself: the person with whom I can celebrate five years of all this hard journey that I have had to live is with a person that I admire and love like Héctor, plus we are truly Chiclayanos.

-How did you meet?

Hector: We know each other from Chiclayo, from home. My parents are very friends with Cecilia and Kike. They had a Pueblo Viejo restaurant in Chiclayo and my family and I have gone and admired their cuisine and we have always applauded them. More than being cooks and suddenly at some point there could be what could be called a rivalry, it is now about coming together to help each other and walk together, because the road is very long and there are many tasks to do. And since there is a lot to do, we need more hands. I wish there were more people wanting to create restaurants with good Chiclayan cuisine, with a lot of heart and soul, but also with very good products, leaving aside the economic aspect, which is also important, in favor of tradition and the product.

– As you say, one could believe that two chefs who have similar proposals could be rivals.

Hector: Rivalry does not exist because the market is very broad. Also, because, to begin with, we are not like that. And the world is so big and we are so small, that we have to deliver what we can deliver. Imagine, we would lack space. At least I don’t see any type of possibility (to the rivalry) and wherever I can be, I am. (Both Cecilia and I) have moved forward with our restaurants and our brands and where we can be together to support the people who come to do good work, honest work, we will be there.

– What highlights from these 5 years of Pueblo Viejo in Lima, Cecilia?

Cecilia: Having met so many beautiful people. On this path, with many years of experience, I have met wonderful people and it makes me happy to know that, from the place where I am, I also make many people happy, not only from Chiclayanos, but also from Lima who come to the restaurant. . That is also the motivation: to make our native products and ancestral techniques known to people who did not know them. That people know the guitar, the stripe… fills me with satisfaction, it is a purpose that I feel fulfilled.

-In both of our kitchens, the product is very important. What should we do in times when the product is affected by climate change and natural phenomena?

Cecilia: Climate change causes unimaginable effects. For example, potatoes no longer come the same. We didn’t have a good time last month because the harvest took a long time. We must set an example to preserve our planet, starting with the education of the chefs themselves, for example on the issue of waste. We have to have that training and start at home, there the cook has a very big obligation.

Hector: In addition to climate change, I think it is also important to talk about the oblivion in which many farmers, animal breeders and artisanal fishermen find themselves. A generalized forgetfulness that goes from the State to society. That forgetfulness is harder and more powerful now than climate change. There are chili peppers in Peru that are disappearing not only in the north, but along the entire Peruvian coast, because we do not use them. And why don’t we use them? Because we are uneducated, we have not been taught that there are 300 types of chili peppers in Peru and we only use one or two chili peppers. We have farmers who previously planted a cherry tree in Monsefú and who now stopped planting it because there is no one to consume it, not even the Chiclayanos themselves know about it. And thus such valuable, exquisite and unmatched species disappear throughout the planet. This forgetfulness and delay is harder and more dramatic than climate change and so many things that are important, but I believe that the work here is cultural. Therefore, arriving from Chiclayo to Lima and setting up with effort a restaurant of traditional Chiclayo cuisine in the middle of Miraflores, like Pueblo Viejo, is remarkable. That’s why I feel comfortable in these causes, because this teaches. I wish that not only Chiclayans would come to the banquet that Cecilia and Kike are calling, but also people they don’t know so that they know what can be done in Peru: in Chiclayo, on the entire coast, in the mountains, in the Peruvian Amazon.

-For you the cultural issue is very important…

Hector: Culture is what differentiates us from any other part of the planet. For example, the caballito de totora in Pimentel is about to disappear, no one talks about it. If they see it, they take a photo of it there and say how beautiful it is, but in the next five years there won’t be any more, I’ll tell you. Because there are no longer children who want to be fishermen of caballito de totora, because parents suffer it every day and have no way to raise their children, they have no possibilities, it is terrible and the State is inert, society is inert and Pimentel is over there.

– Both started at a time when northern cuisine was not as widespread in Lima as it is now, when there is a boom of restaurants that offer it in the capital.

Cecilia: Héctor and I belong to different generations, I belong to a generation in which there was almost no such thing as gourmet, there were not so many schools either, there was only one which was the Cenfotour. In this part of my life, I am surprised to see how there is an attraction to northern food, but at the same time it is also not the real thing…

Hector: When you travel the world, the first dish you can find on any menu on the planet is now a ceviche. You travel to Paris and there is a ceviche, and that’s what Peru says. What happens in our country is that you can always see something northern in the cards, and here I must clarify that I don’t like the title ‘northern’.

– Because?

Hector: Because northern, if we are here in Lima, it could refer to Huacho and Huaral. You could also be talking about Trujillo or Tumbes, for me (the term) is Chiclayano or Chiclayana, so that’s another story. Chiclayan cuisine has its own identity, it is unique and very interesting, because it has unique products such as loche, its chili peppers and its ducks. But returning to the topic of cooking, yes, I see an interest in it, but an interest that, as Cecilia says, is not so studied, it is an interest in taking the name, but, well, that is already progress…

Cecilia: But the problem is that they do not distort (what Chiclayan food is)…

Hector: People are not interested in learning things. Nobody searches, nobody investigates, nobody reads. Now all restaurants have chiclayan pancakes, but made in an amazingly bad way. The nice thing is that at least they are now present, one feels happy to see that they are in the cards. Going back to what I said a while ago, if you go to Paris, in a restaurant you find ceviche and you say ‘wow, Peru’, but you may also find it not like they do in Peru. And that happens in Lima, you find a corn pancake, a pepián or rice with duck, and for me it is amazing. Whether they make the rice with duck however they want to make it, is another matter. At least it is progress that it is already on the menu, that it is within the national radar. The name is already there, we have to continue on that path.

Cecilia: I have to see with the format that I have how I can advance as well, because that is also what it is about, moving forward. I have stuck to traditional food

Hector: And that’s beautiful…

Cecilia: I am always in that process of thinking and remembering what they ate (in my country). Now, for example, I have chirimpico on my menu, which is almost not sold in Lima. It is not easy to feed a resident of Miraflores, a resident of Lima, the offal of the kid, because chirimpico is a kind of cau cau, but with loche and chicha, but I already have it on the menu and there are people who try it and he loves it. That is my mission right now, to be able to rescue as much as possible.

-What is your process for bringing back souvenir recipes?

Cecilia: There is a memory that one has as if it were a chip. I never had a recipe from my mother. I was always very close to it, but I don’t have recipes. I have had to be trained here by the guys at the restaurant who are trained in cooking school on the topic of recipes, because I have always cooked by eye, for me the recipe is in the palate: you try and feel. If something is missing, you add chicha or yellow chili or apply loche, and that’s how you find the flavor. It is a taste memory. To make the chirimpico I did two tests because I didn’t remember it very well. My mother’s recipe was with sangria, but I don’t use it because here (in Lima) they reject goat’s blood. But I already have chirimpico and also legs in cold cuts. I think it is very interesting to have this format of traditional food.

-And how is the banquet with Hector going to be?

Cecilia: We are going to evoke a Chiclayan family party. Everything will be absolutely generous: the food and drink will be generous. That’s why we want people to come to this event in groups and not so much in pairs, to get together to enjoy, because there will be plenty of food and drinks, which will be served on the table.

– What are they going to cook?

Hector: We are going to cook chiclayanitude, generosity, affection and love for our land. This is the beautiful kitchen of Cecilia and Kike Salazar, and I am going to accompany them. I will have the privilege of accompanying them and having a chicha de jora and an aniseed pisco that they have promised me. In private we have met several times, but this is surely the first time we have gotten together to hold an event. What I would like to highlight for the people who come and for the public who read and listen to us, is that they know that what we have here is friendship, we have to always be together.