The first time I made mazamorra morada and arroz con leche in 2008.
Mazamorra morada is a well-known dessert in Peruvian gastronomy. I think personally, when a Peruvian lives abroad, he/her misses a lot its flavor for two reasons: i) There is no natural substitute for purple corn or ii) Chicha morada sachets, mazamorra sachets or vacuum packed purple corn might be expensive.
Following The Royal Spanish Academy - the institution responsible for regulating Spanish language - mazamorra is a very soft liquid mass done with maize and prepared according to the style of many countries from Latin Amercia. So, there is a wide range of mazamorras but in Lima, mazamorra morada is the most well-known and one of the most eaten desserts.
Limeño/a mazamorrero/a is a colloquialism used since 19th century which refers the love of Limeans (as myself) to eat a certain dessert. Which dessert would be it?. Dear reader, I let you think a moment...
Ricardo Palma, Peruvian author and librarian whose master piece is Tradiciones Peruanas, refers to this colloquialism in the short story El Rey del Monte (The King of the Hill). Another Peruvian author, Manuel Atanasio Fuentes, writes about the celebrity of mazamorra personified by Ña Aguedita:
The history of Lima will long preserve the memory of Ña Aguedita, whose cooling compounds and mazamorras gave her greater celebrity in Lima than the inventor of the electric telegraph enjoyed. Ña Aguedita sold refreshing beverages in the morning, and in the evening, she also offered her costumers mazamorra morada and champuz de agrio y leche (curds and milk acidulated with lemon)(...)
Even, during Spanish Inquisition in Peru, mazamorra had such popularity that was supossedly used for witchcraft acts, as Palma says in his book Anales de la Inquisición de Lima (Annals of the Inquisition in Lima).
Nowadays, everybody knows that there is no witchcraft in order to enchant. Purple corn, the main ingredient of this Limean dessert (as well as chicha morada, the refreshing beverage not the alcoholic one), has antioxidant strenghts, anti-inflammatory capabilities, targets cancer and also has anti-obesity potential.
As a good limeña mazamorrera, I will eat mazamorra.
Excuse me...
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