Harvesting Maca in Junín, Perú

One of the highlights of my fieldwork among maca producers in Junín, Perú, was witnessing the maca harvest and post-harvest practices. The photos below illustrate much of the process, including picking, cleaning, and sun-drying the maca roots.

After the roots have been thoroughly dried they are ready to be sold to processors who turn the roots into powders, supplements, and other products for national and international markets. Very few growers process the roots into value-added products themselves. There is one processing plant in Junín, but the majority of maca processing and exporting takes place in larger cities such as Huancayo and Lima.

Workers harvest maca using hand tools on hillside above Lake Junín.

Workers harvesting maca high above Lake Junín.

Initial cleaning of maca roots takes place by swinging the roots in nets.

A family of maca growers in Junín, sorting the maca by size and colour.

Freshly picked maca roots showing colour variation.

This man is selecting prime maca roots for replanting to obtain seed. He looks for large size and even shape.

Prime maca specimens showing colour variation.

Christening a new tractor with maca liquor. The tractor will be used to turn over soil prior to planting maca.

Maca dries in the sun against a backdrop of mountains and sheep grazing.

Maca are covered in plastic to protect from rain overnight. In the morning these growers unwrap and spread out the roots to facilitate sun-drying.

Maca drying in a plastic tunnel, which concentrates heat from the sun and speeds up the drying process. Here they are sorted into black and white specimens, as black fetches a higher price from Chinese buyers.

Maca in Junín: Jugo de Maca, Especial de Maca, and La Papayita

Junín, Perú, is the historical centre of origin and centre of maca production today.  Situated at 4,100 metres above sea level, this is a cold region with an austere landscape, where little else of value can grow. 

Vicuñas

The highway runs directly through the town of Junín, passing through barren grasslands dotted with grazing vicuñas (an elegant wild relative of alpacas) before entering a strip of roadside restaurants, snack stands, gas stations, and industrial buildings.  One can stop at a dozen places to buy a warm jugo de maca, a blend of dried maca roots stewed with apples and honey and blended to a thick nectar, or especial de maca, a thick blended concoction with the texture of a smoothie, alongside the only other regional speciality, a substantial round of salty, feta-like cheese made from unpasteurized cow’s milk.

My partner Tim drinking a warm jugo de maca on the roadside in Junín

Signs advertising maca drinks along the highway

But the true connoisseur knows that the place for refreshment is at the far end of the carretera (highway), one of the last establishments before the road continues on through vistas of alpine lagoons and towering mountaintops towards the mining city of Cerro de Pasco.  The pink building bears the name of the shop as well as its proprietor, painted in artistic lettering alongside illustrations of the produce in which it specialises: papaya and maca.  “La Papayita” is the oldest maca juice establishment and, for many travellers, the best.

The outside of La Papayita

If the door is unlocked, then Timotea Cordova is in the shop, or at least at home.  She lives in the rear rooms of the same aged building, and her rocking chair is strategically situated between the shop and house sections so that she can simultaneously knit and keep an eye on the road.  If she doesn’t greet her customer at the door, she is only a good holler away, and she’ll bustle amiably to her station behind the blender to fix her famous beverage for any caller.  Her drink is called “especial de maca” and the main ingredient is, naturally, that distinctive earthy-sweet root of the region.  She uses dried maca roots that have been soaked overnight in water, which sit in a large glass jar on a simple table. Lined up next to the maca are the other ingredients for the drink, ready to assemble: fresh papaya, raw egg, milk, raw sugar, and a carob syrup called algarrobina.  They all go into the blender for about a minute, and the thick, nutritious concoction, faintly reminiscent of a peanut butter smoothie, is poured into tall glasses.  Seconds are always offered.

The original especial de maca at La Papayita

Timotea has been nourishing customers with her “especial de maca” since 1942, when she opened her first maca juice shop in the larger nearby city of La Oroya.  In 1952, when she married her husband who worked for a mining company in the central highlands, she relocated both herself and her business to Junín.  She proudly displays a certificate recognizing her work promoting maca as an important contribution to the economic development of Junín, signed by local government officials, alongside 30 or so other certificates honoring her life’s achievements.  According to her own accounting, she was the only one selling maca when she started.  But she had aways consumed this root, which her family had been growing for their own consumption as long as anyone could remember.  Her grandmothers taught her how to grow and dry the maca roots, then soak them in water and make a nutritious drink or porridge.  But in those days, she says, they had to mash it by hand with a wooden dowel.  Her bright eyes sparkle mischieviously and her smooth cheekbones spread into a grin as she announces that she’s now 88 years old and still full of energy – thanks to her daily consumption of maca her whole life, she explains.

Timotea behind the counter at La Papayita

Maca in Perú, Part 2: Huancayo

Maca is not traditional in Huancayo (it was apparently as unknown here thirty years ago as in the rest of Peru), but the regional capital is only 166 kilometres from its historic area of cultivation in Junín.  You might think that this proximity would give maca a stronger presence in Huancayo than in more distant parts of the country.

In some regards this is the case.  You can find fresh, dried, and powdered maca for sale at weekly neighbourhood markets, such as the Thursday and Sunday Feria in the El Tambo district.  I even found some maca being sold by a woman who grew it herself in her Junín fields.  At the same market, I tasted a hot maca drink, slightly sweet and thick, brewed together with quinoa, kiwicha, anise seeds, and raw sugar.  A few blocks away, a colourful storefront on the main street sells a maca juice "especial": a blend of brewed maca root with papaya, quinoa, kiwicha, milk, and sugar, served cool in a tall glass by a sweet, tiny lady.

Maca for sale at the El Tambo feria

A colourful cafe serving tasty maca juice blends

On one of the dozens of blocks of vendors surrounding the central Mercado Mayorista, a group of vendors sell the strangest of the maca offerings: a medicinal drink, served warm in plastic cups and brewed in a huge steel pot, each containing a top secret brew of maca, herbs, frogs, and other mystery ingredients.  Out of curiosity, I accepted the offer to taste a sip of one such brew.  The maca and sugar made it sweet and thick, but the undertones of frog left me slightly queasy.  Maybe it was just in my mind, but I'm not rushing to try it again, even if it is a miracle cure!

Closeup of a medicinal brew containing whole maca roots, herbs, frogs, and snails

At specialty markets, maca manufacturers promote their products.  These are generally value-added health products, manufactured in Huancayo with organic maca sourced from the Junín area.  The vendors I met at the El Tambo Saturday Organic Feria and a pop-up artisan feria in the Real Plaza (Huancayo's big, modern mall) offered a liquid supplement of maca mixed with honey, an instant maca drink to which one just adds hot water or milk, maca powder to add to juices or smoothies, maca capsules, and a maca liquor.  These are specialty products, largely for export or for sale at natural medicine shops in Perú.

Maca "Ponderoso" products on display at an artisanal feria

What I didn't see here was the presence of maca in foods, such as the maca bread for sale at a vegetarian cafe in Cusco or the maca pizza base in Lima.  I also found fewer maca candies and supermarket products such as oats with maca.  I did, however, encounter some "maca-chips" ice cream at the Sunday Mercado!  This absence may simply be connected to the lack of tourists in the area as well as to the relative uniformity of restaurant menus in Huancayo.  While there are several restaurants that prepare tasty food, menus tend to lack in creativity or innovation.

Maca ice cream alongside other "frutos exóticos nutritivos y medicinales de la región"

Overall, it seems that maca remains a specialty health food or supplement in Huancayo, just as in the rest of Perú.  The only difference is that some influence from Junín is found in a few examples of more "traditional" preparations, such as the maca juice blend and the warm medicinal drinks.  In fact, the tiny woman and her husband who run the maca juice shop learned to prepare this juice when he was working as an agronomist in the Junín area.  However, aside from these few exceptions, maca is still a novelty here, regarded specifically as a medicinal or supplementary product and not as a regular foodstuff.

Maca in Peru, Part 1: Lima & Cusco

Bienvenidos a Perú, and greetings from Cusco, the spiritual heart of South America.

I'm here to investigate the uses and meanings of the celebrated maca root in its country of origin.  If you're unfamiliar with maca, that may change shortly.  It is enjoying a renaissance as a dietary supplement and general health food here in Perú, and is becoming increasingly well known as a superfood in affluent countries throughout the world.

While humble in appearance and rather unusual in taste (it has a slightly sweet, malty flavor), this rustic root has great significance in a country proud of its ancient traditions, its rich biodiversity, and its distinctive mezcla (mixing) of cultures.

Fresh maca roots for sale in the San Pedro Market, Cusco, Perú

Background to Maca: History and Current Popularity

Of course the history of maca starts long before there was such a thing as the country of Perú, or even the Incan Empire for that matter.  Maca has been eaten in the Andean highlands since at least 1900 BC.  At first it was gathered from the wild, and eventually the plant became cultivated extensively in the puna around Lake Junín.

What really makes maca such a fascinating plant, and what has drawn me to Perú to study it, is its ability to grow at extreme altitudes where the cultivation of other edible plants is impossible.  Maca thrives at a dizzying 4,000 metres above sea level, which is enough to make any sensible plant, animal, or human more than a little queasy.  But perhaps it is this very fact that contributes to its nutritional density, for it must survive in an incredibly harsh climate.  

Maca has long been a staple food in the Junín region, and during pre-Colombian and early colonial times it was traded widely.  Under Spanish rule, maca was used to pay taxes, and was also fed to Spanish livestock (and humans) in order to increase fertility at high altitudes.  Maca has long held a reputation for enhancing fertility, and it is, in part, this property that has contributed to its current popularity.

Although widely traded in the early Colonial Period, maca disappeared entirely from mention in any literary sources during the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Only in the 1960s did it achieve any recognition again, and only by a small number of botanists.  By 1980 its area of cultivation may have been as small as 15 hectares, and concerns regarding its possible extinction were raised.

However during the late 1970s and early 1980s, as a few scientific studies confirming maca's fertility-enhancing properties were published, the plant suddenly began to receive renewed attention.  Over the next thirty years, maca rather rapidly transformed from a very localized staple to a global superfood.

Maca in Lima and Cusco

Within Perú, maca has become an important supplement and can be found it various forms in nearly every market, supermarket, and corner store.  Over the past few weeks I've spent time in Lima and Cusco, meeting with maca researchers and studying Spanish.  I've also begun documenting maca wherever I find it, taking photographs and recording its various forms and prices.

I've found whole, fresh maca roots in some surprising places, including a large supermarket in Lima, a more traditional market made up of independent stalls in Lima, and the large San Pedro Market in Cusco.

Fresh maca root in Metro Supermercado, Lima

I've only seen dried maca roots at a few stalls in the San Pedro Market, despite reading that this is the most common form.  Maca powder, or harina de maca, is widely available, either in bulk at the San Pedro Market or in expensive packets in supermarkets and small corner stores.

Dried maca roots with dried san pedro, palo santo, and other local medicinal/spiritual plant products

Maca flour along with an array of quinoas and other Andean grains

A large range of maca candies, liquors, and other processed goods are found nearly everywhere, sometimes mixed with other native health foods such as coca and quinoa.  A vegetarian cafe in Cusco serves maca rolls, while a touristic pizza restaurant in Lima offers a maca-quinoa pizza base.

Maca and Peruvian Identity

Perú is a country with a strong culinary culture.  There are two aspects to this gastronomic awareness: a long history of consumption of an incredibly wide array of important edible and medicinal plants that are native to the country, and the influence of the Nuevo Andino food movement, which has brought a lot of positive attention to these native foodstuffs.

It is common to see maca, quinoa, coca, native potatoes, and other indigenous foods together on restaurant menus.  Products made from these ingredients also appear side by side on the shelves of supermarkets, corner stores, and health food shops.  

To what degree does the association of these native foodstuffs with each other, as well as their prevalence, have to do with a sense of national identity and pride, and to what degree does it have to do with the association of the above plants with health?  In other words, is there a difference in the conception of these superfoods here in Perú than in other countries?  Does the fact that they are native make them more celebrated?  My hypothesis is that more than simply being health foods, they provide a way for Peruvians to feel connected to an ancient past, to reclaim or rediscover knowledge that for centuries had been suppressed.  In my next entry I'll explore these ideas further.