Big response to the Australian Maritime Museum’s Peruvian Festival

The Peruvian Cultural and Gastronomical Festival at the Australian Maritime Museum (ANM) last Sunday gathered a big unexpected Sydney crowd leaving sponsors content in their effort to promote Australian travellers to Peru.

The festival called ‘Lima City of Kings’ organised by Soul of Peru- an organisation promoting a cultural connection with Australia and sponsored by the Consulate of Peru and the Australian Maritime Museum included live performances of traditional music and dance, cooking demonstrations, Peruvian film screenings, an alpaca fashion parade, as well as a lecture on Peru’s native potato.

Organisers and founders of  Soul of Peru – Carmen Almenara and Rossana Spiers organised the framework of the festival from scratch, meeting weekly after work and on the weekends to bring this event together.

“We’ve had this dream for 6 years now to have a Peruvian festival, not only to promote music and art, but geography and gastronomy. When you think about Peru, you usually relate it to Macchu Picchu but there’s just so much more,” Ms Spiers said.

“We decided to use Lima’s charm as a gateway to explore our heritage and mixture of cultures, like our the indigineous heritage, the Africans, the Chinese and Japanese, and Europeans migrants.”

Peru’s multicultural heritage was explored through their dance performance formed by African, Spanish and Andean rhythms. The Peruvian gastronomy, a mixture of traditional indigineous ingredients and spices with Spanish, Italian, African, Chinese and Japanese influences was also introduced to the public by high profile Sydney-based Peruvian chefs.

Chef Alejandro Saravia attracted a full house audience with his cooking demonstration of the ‘tiradito” dish, raw white fish cooked and seasoned through a variety of traditional sauces influenced by the Japanese sashimi.

The food stalls where sorrounded by long lines in the open grounds of the AMN, which seemed just to small for the day. Sydneysiders strolled drinking yellow cans of Inka Cola, Peru’s most popular soda drink based on lemon verbena.

“I went to Peru in the late 90’s and was introduced to Inca Cola, and haven’t had one since then. It’s refreshing for this sunny day,” said Peter Adams, a visitor from Glebe. The Aussie born llamas ‘Chanel’ and ‘Georgia’ gave the festival a warm feeling with dozens of adults and children snuggling for a photo.

Peruvian-Australian fashion designer Claudia Bahamondes drawed a cheering crowed as she showcased her Alpaca fibre collection of unique casual and bridal designs. â€œYou saw the crowd, the place was packed! We’ve estimated around 5, 000 people throughout the day,” said Ms. Dallas Bicknell, the organiser for the ANM.

“The event was aimed at the wider community,  it’s just been a great response.”

“ I never tried any Peruvian food because by the time I finished running around all of it  was gone.”

The Peruvian  Chef de Partie at Star City, Jorge Chacon prepared for the event ‘ceviche’ (sliced raw fished cooked in lemon juice served with onions and chilli), which was around 50 kilos of fish sold out in two hours, according to Ms. Bicknell.

A Report By Silvia Garcia