INCA EMPIRE - FOOD AND DRINK

A wide variety of foods were eaten by the Incas and their subjects. Most of their food was domesticated. The Incas grew corn, potatoes, oca, ullucu, quinoa, tarwi (a kind of grain), and squashes of several varieties. The main sources of meat were guinea pigs and ducks, although llamas were also eaten. Wild plants and animals were relatively minor contributors to the food supply. Fish was consumed along the coast and near Lake Titicaca.
Food was either boiled in a pot or roasted over an open flame. Soups and stews were the main dishes, and a wide variety were eaten.

The recipe for one of these, called motepatasca by Cobo, consisted of corn cooked with herbs and chili peppers until the kernels split open. Another, called locro, was a stew made of meat, potatoes, chuño (freeze-dried potatoes), other vegetables, and chili peppers. As in the Andes today, chili peppers and other spices were often used to make food more flavorful. A kind of corn bread was also made, either by boiling it or baking it in the ashes of a fire. Corn was toasted for eating while traveling. Popcorn was considered a delicacy.
The main drink was chicha, a mildly fermented beverage made from any of several plants, predominantly corn. To prepare it, women chewed the kernels, seeds, or fruit and spit the pulp into a large jar filled with warm water. Enzymes in the saliva broke down the sugars in the pulp, allowing it to ferment over the course of several days. The longer the fermentation process went on, the stronger the alcohol content became. Chicha was the staple drink of natives throughout the Andes, but it also had enormous religious importance for the Incas, being used in all religious ceremonies. Cobo mentions that water was never drunk unless there was no chicha or other drink.

The Incas ate only two meals a day, one in the morning at 8 or 9 o’clock and one in the afternoon at 4 or 5 o’clock. Whether certain foods were preferred for these meals is not known. The Incas ate sitting on the ground. Women ate back to back with the men, facing the cooking pots. Cooking was done in ceramic pots with pedestals or tripods placed directly in the fire. The Incas ate from flat plates, sometimes decorated with animal-head handles, and drank from tall cups made of wood or pottery.
The only difference between nobles and others was that nobles used plates and cups made of gold and silver, rather than pottery. For special occasions people sat in two lines, corresponding to the two moieties. They sat on the ground, facing each other, with the most important person sitting on a stool at the head of the lines. The food was the same as at any other meal, and each family brought its own food.
Food and drink were stored in large pots or jars, typically with pointed bases. Household storage was done in bins of cornstalks plastered with mud, attic or rafter space, and mud-lined pits in the floor. Outside storage structures were made of adobe and were typically larger. Food from the harvest was stored in outside structures, then brought inside when its use was imminent.
Meat and fish were preserved by freeze-drying, a process also used to make chuño from potatoes. This procedure was commonly done in the winter, when it is cold and dry in the highlands. Potatoes were softened in water, then ground up and left to freeze at night. During the day when temperatures rose, the potatoes thawed and the water evaporated, drying the pulp. This was repeated until the potatoes were dried and would not spoil. Meat was cut into thin strips, pounded, then left to freeze at night and dry in the hot midday sun. This meat was called charqui (whence comes the term jerky). Freeze-drying enabled the Incas to store large quantities of food for imperial uses. Dried food also had the advantage of being easier to transport from its place of production to its place of storage.
The Incas used no intoxicants other than chicha, although they did use two drugs—coca and wild tobacco—as mild narcotics. Coca, from which the modern narcotic cocaine is derived, is a small bush that grows in the eastern foothills. The leaves were chewed with a small amount of lime to release the active ingredient, an alkaloid that mildly numbs the senses. Its use was restricted to the nobility and the religious elite. Tobacco, which was not cultivated but collected wild, was taken as a snuff and was used as a charm against poisonous animals.

By Michael A. Malpass in the book 'Daily Life in the Inca Empire', Greenwood Press U.S.A., 1996, p.81.83. Adapted to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.(Illustrations from the book)