Quinotto (Peruvian Quinoa Risotto)

White Americans introduced me, a Peruvian immigrant, to eating quinoa.

I know that this may not be a popular assertion. After all, many minorities are trying to reclaim their cultural heritage from members of this country's power structure who have stolen and profited from it under the name of "cultural appropriation."

However, to claim that I, a Creole-identifying Peruvian from Lima, learned how to cook and enjoy quinoa at home from generations of family recipes would be a lie—and would also deny the social injustices that exist in the country of my birth.

Quinoa is an edible seed, masquerading as a grain, that is indigenous to the Andean region of South America, where native peoples, most famously the Inca civilization, have been cultivating it for millennia. Even today it is a traditional crop of the contemporary Quechua people, descendants of the Incas and the single largest ethnic group in Peru, with at least one-third of the population claiming at least some Quechua ancestry.

Unlike the United States, where citizens of European descent comprise the statistical and sociological majority (i.e., they outnumber other ethnic groups while also representing our power structure) and are scattered throughout the country, people of European descent constitute as little as 15% of Peru's population, are concentrated in the capital city, Lima, and control almost all aspects of Peruvian politics, economics and culture. To give you, the reader, an idea of what this would feel like, imagine that the whole concept of what it means to be part of the United States is mandated by New York City, all of the nation's resources are diverted to New York City, and all of the nation's leaders come from New York City. It's no wonder, then, that Peru is experiencing nationwide unrest as the indigenous majority living outside of Lima has had enough of this system.

After gaining independence from Spain, much of Peru became wrapped up in keeping up aristocratic appearances. But this whole preoccupation was nowhere as ingrained into our psyches as it was in Lima. Your adherence to viceroyalty-era social rules could guarantee your future, and no amount of money could correct poor manners, poor diction, poor posture and a poor diet.

In a country obsessed with gastronomy, it's only natural that these Eurocentric social rules extended into food. And for a limeño (someone from Lima) trying to maintain an image of dignity or—in the case of my family—trying to move up the social ladder, what you ate said just as much about who you were as where you went to school and where you lived.

Class-based associations with foods aren't a uniquely Peruvian thing. We see them in the United States too. In contemporary culture, for example, processed foods are seen as something uneducated and poor people consume. In Lima, however, these dietary rules took on a different bent. Indigenous groups like the Quechua are seen as second-class citizens in Peru. And what you ate as a limeño was supposed to distinguish you from rural, indigenous peasants first and foremost. As a result, European foods were considered acceptable—if not preferable—whereas native products were seen as undesirable—if not inedible. The only exceptions would be native foods that the Spanish or other European settlers deemed favorable, like a handful of the thousands of species of potatoes, some chile peppers and a few herbs.

Quinoa was one of the foodstuffs that was considered almost taboo, along with other nutritious, affordable and tasty native products that formed an exhaustive list of things that were off-limits to self-respecting, Eurocentric limeños. When I first encountered quinoa in magazines and at gourmet stores in Miami, where we fled as refugees in 1989, I was excited to see another unique part of Peruvian food culture that distinguished us from the Hispanic Caribbean majority in my new hometown. I excitedly went to ask my father about it, and he wrinkled his nose and said to me, "That's Indio food for peasants. We don't eat that. We have rice." This was the age before the internet was available in every home, and my dad was the gatekeeper to my Peruvian identity, so as many sons who idealized their fathers did, I blindly believed him and moved on.

As I got older, quinoa didn't go away as some flash-in-the-pan fad but rather became more available in the United States, especially as the gluten-free lifestyle became all the rage. Around the same time, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, a culinary revolution was occurring in Peru. After decades of maintaining a Eurocentric view toward our food, many young chefs were returning from their stages in Europe and North America with valuable insight: our Peruvian food is something to be very proud of.

All of a sudden, my father and many other expat Peruvians were proudly announcing all the health benefits of all of these native foodstuffs that they previously showed disdain toward. Quinoa went from something to be embarrassed about to a source of pride for many baby boomer Peruvians and their progeny. Nevertheless, we limeños, who had been subject to generations of gastronomic Eurocentrism, still didn't have a clue what to do with this superfood, while many Americans were starting to put it into pilafs and granola bars.

Luckily, the newfound pride in "lo nuestro" (our own things) spawned Cocina Novoandina, or New Andean Cuisine. Classically trained chefs were taking native Peruvian ingredients and using them in traditional European applications. Whereas a few decades earlier, all the fanciest restaurants in Lima were unequivocally European, you could now have a gourmet meal featuring guinea pig confit served in a reduction of chancaca (a type of unrefined sugar), Muscovy duck cooked like coq au vin with chicha de jora (corn beer) and purple potatoes, and soufflé made with a fruit called lucuma. One of the dishes that these innovative chefs came up with was cleverly called quinotto, a portmanteau of quinoa and risotto. It was a hit and a perfect vehicle for all sorts of Peru-centric creations, as well as being a novel change from the rice that accompanied most limeño dishes.

Quinotto became so popular, in fact, that it trickled down to mid-range restaurants and home kitchens and even made it into the United States, where you can find it at some of the more cheffy Peruvian restaurants, particularly in South Florida. Part of the reason it became so popular is because it is exponentially easier to prepare than Italian risotto, which requires constant monitoring. As well, most Latin Americans have an almost inherited dislike for mushy or porridge-like rice, which is the desired outcome of a risotto. Quinotto takes no time to make, can be reheated without turning into a solid brick, and is more nutritious than risotto. It is also a dish that reflects the changing view that we limeños have about our own cuisine and what it says about us. While some of the first quinoa dishes I ever tried were Anglo-American salads and raisin-spiked pilafs, when someone now asks me for a Peruvian preparation of quinoa that reflects my own lived experience, I can proudly offer my recipe for quinotto.