Chairo

The chairo is a soup that combines typical ingredients from the Andes region with foods from the Old World introduced by the Spanish, such as beef and lamb meat (the meat of llama and alpaca can also be used). It is consumed mainly in western Bolivia, southern Peru and other countries in the Andean region.

Ingredients

The main ingredients are chuño (dried potato), sweet potato, lamb, chalona (dried beef), broad beans or peas, and peeled mote. Of Andean origin, it is a thick soup that is serve piping hot.

Chairo is a substantial soup characterized by dehydrated potato (chuño), lamb meat, dried meat (chalona), potato, carrot, onion, broad beans and/or peas, corn grains, mint, huacatay, oregano, cumin, garlic, parsley and salt. The ingredients vary according to the regions or localities, regarding chairo cusqueño we read in the Spanish Quechua dictionary

«chairo. s. alim. Vianda in the form of soup, composed of potatoes, guts, chopped meat, portion of wheat and maize burst”

Etymology

The word chairo is registered in Aymara language dictionaries and Runa Simi dictionaries (Quechua), as chayru, meaning soup, with a nuclear ingredient: chuño. For a variety, possibly from Puno, the Aimarista lexicographer Felipe Huayhua Pari has written

«chayru[...]n. Typical dish prepared in (sic) chalone, pieces of meat, green beans, chopped potatoes and chuñu ground, in the form of soup»

History

A good part of the ingredients for chairo were brought by the Spanish to America, reaching the Andean highlands in 1532.

In the cookbook written by Josepha de Escurrechea in 1776, a dish is mentioned, the Spanish pot, which was mixed according to the following ingredients: beef breast, mutton, ham, bacon, capons or fat chickens, chickpea, garlic, mint, cilantro, cabbage, cassava, sweet potato, plantain, turnip, quince, pear, pumpkin, potato, oca, chuño, black pudding, sausage, sausage, saffron, cloves, cinnamon, pepper, mustard, parsley and chili. These ingredients would be the base of the chairo. The first historical reference to chairo as a word used in Latin American gastronomy is found in the work of Ciro Bayo, Chuquisaca, where he recounts his five-year stay in Sucre at the end of the century XIX (1890).

Because the people in the countryside had to walk and work for hours, far from their homes, they chose to prepare a soup that had these foods, that would not spoil easily and could be transported for a long time. Already with the arrival in the city, this soup was somewhat sophisticated, adding to it, for example, wheat and carrots.

Chairo is a Bolivian tradition mainly from the city of La Paz and is also part of a Peruvian tradition from Puno, a well-known dish of Aymara origin.

Its consumption is also very popular in the Peruvian highlands, forming an important part of the cuisine of the Puno Region.

Varieties

Some varieties of this dish are:

Bolivians

• Chairo cochabambino
• Chairo paceño

Peruvian

• Pointing chair
• Chairo cusqueño
• Chairo moqueguano
• Chairo serrano