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Bolivia seeks to revalue its peppers with ancestral techniques in preparations

El Alto (Bolivia), Jul 23 (EFE).- The tradition of grinding chili peppers and local herbs in a stone fulling mill to prepare llajua, the emblematic hot sauce that cannot be missing in Bolivian cuisine, is the protagonist of a festival that seeks to revalue these ancestral cooking techniques. The “LlaqwART 2022” festival, an initiative of the Bolivian Ministry of Culture, arrived this Saturday in the city of El Alto, neighboring La Paz, where dozens of indigenous and peasant women from different La Paz communities gathered to show their best preparations of llajua. The objective of the initiative is to recover the “knowledge” and traditional techniques for the preparation of the llajua, explained the Minister of Cultures, Sabina Orellana, upon opening the festival, held in the courtyard of the Santa Rosa peasant market. “What we want and try to do is get back to our business,” the authority said. “(These techniques) we have always had, only now women are becoming lazy. In the world, not only in Bolivia, we are being consumed by the ‘doras’, the washing machine, the blender, we no longer make the llajuita in batán” lamented the minister. Orellana appreciated that the women of La Paz maintain the tradition of preparing this typical spicy sauce in batán and urged all Bolivian women “to appropriate this culture that we have always had and will always exist.” She also defended that it is not necessary to have a one-meter fulling mill, a small one is enough to better preserve the flavors of the peppers and herbs when grinding them. SPICY AND STONES The bright red, yellow and green colors of locotos, chinches and ulupicas, three types of Bolivian spicy berries, or pods of yellow and red chili peppers stood out on the exhibition tables of the representatives of the La Paz provinces at the festival. There was no shortage of strong aromas of Andean herbs for seasoning, such as quirquiña and huacataya, which are mixed with the spicy ones to prepare these sauces. The products were displayed on ceramic plates and some already transformed into llajua could be tasted along with some cooked foods, such as corn, potatoes and chuño, a kind of dehydrated potato, as well as lamb or fish prepared in traditional stoves. The participants brought their own fulling mills, consisting of completely flat or somewhat concave stones on which the elements are placed and other smaller, spherical or cylindrical ones, which are used for grinding. The fulling mills are traditional, especially in western Bolivia, and are also used to grind grains, make flour in small quantities, or grind food before cooking. THE VARIETIES The Aymara Lucía Huayhua, 69, arrived from a community in the province of Manco Kapac with five varieties of llajuas, all prepared in batán, according to what she assured Efe. One of them is the wayk’a jallpa, prepared with yellow chili pepper in a roasted pod, a little salt and some huacataya leaves and ruda, an Andean medicinal plant. Huayhua also made a traditional llajua with ground locoto, tomato and quirquiña, and also prepared another with yellow chili and chopped cheese, a fourth with chili and pieces of boiled egg and the last one prepared with chili and retouched and ground peanuts. In his opinion, the hot sauce prepared in a blender “comes out foamy and has no flavor”, while the one made in a batán “has a little flavor”, for which he considered it important “that what our grandparents have left us is not lost”. This opinion is shared by Elizabeth Vargas, from the Loayza province of La Paz, for whom there is nothing like preparing the llajua in a batán and better if up to two spicy ones are mixed, such as locoto and ulupica. “When the food isn’t good, he doesn’t even fix the llajua, that’s why I’ve learned to grind,” Vargas told Efe. “Nowadays they do it with grinders, they don’t do it with a batán anymore,” lamented the 50-year-old woman, who learned from her mother and her grandmother the technique for grinding this sauce. NATIONAL PARTY The “LlaqwART 2022” festival has already passed through other Bolivian regions in search of the best hot sauce that will be declared the “llajua of Bolivia’s bicentennial”, according to Minister Orellana. Each department will participate in the final, scheduled for September 11, with six representatives previously chosen in the regional events, three in the Green category and the same number in the Dry category. It is also planned to prepare a recipe book of the best llajuas and have an international discussion about chili, chili or chilli, as it is known in other countries, Orellana said. Gina Baldivieso (c) Agencia EFE