The jungle chef

Look at that camungo”, says chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino (Lima, 46 years old) while pointing to a bird with black and green feathers with an elegant forelock.

Immediately after he identifies the Lupuna tree, more than 70 meters high and 3 meters in diameter, symbol of the Amazonian spiritual world and haunt, according to legend, of goblins, sorcerers and gigantic animals.

The intertwined treetops create a natural, dark, cold and disturbing vault.

Inside, on a damp earth carpeted with vegetation, under the only ray of light that penetrates the thicket, Schiaffino recognizes the cry of a capuchin monkey and the fruit of the ayahuma, a kind of cannonball with healing properties, but to which everyone here calls it the head of the dead because of the fetid odor it gives off.

Paiche ceviche with sweet potato. Manuel Vázquez

The gaze of others only manages to perceive varieties of green.

Instead, for him, everything has a name, a character and a reason for existing.

The scene takes place in the Peruvian Amazon, specifically in the Yarina lake, located in the Pacaya Samiria national reserve, 10 hours by boat, two by road and another two by plane from the city of Lima.

Schiaffino was the first Peruvian chef to introduce Amazonian ingredients into a gastronomy that, in the early 2000s, tended solely to Creole and to European, Chinese and Japanese influences.

No one in Lima's haute cuisine had dared to use ingredients from the jungle, despite the fact that 60% of the Peruvian territory is Amazonian.

“There was a prejudice and a preconceived idea.

Everything Amazonian was seen as exotic and difficult to obtain.

There is an idea that in the Amazon the monkey is combined with the snake and the spider.

It's not like that,” he says.

The paiche is a fish whose origins date back to the Cretaceous period.

Jaguars have been engaged in sustainable fishing since they can remember. Manuel Vázquez

Thanks to the combination of sachaculantro, cocona, sweet chili or charapita with fish such as maiden, gamitana or paiche, Schiaffino became a benchmark in Peru and later in the region, together with Brazilian chef Alex Atala.

“It seemed interesting to me to investigate the Amazonian diet.

There is something that works very well.

The fact of having a life without stress, not accumulating wealth, not having worries, leading a life in balance with nature and taking advantage of resources to the extent that they are needed.

The Amazon has lived that way for thousands of years,” he says.

The carachama fish, used in the Amazon to combat anemia.Manuel Vázquez

As in that saying about Muhammad and the mountain, Schiaffino left the kitchen temporarily and went out in search of what seemed impossible.

Thus, five years ago one of his great projects was born: Despensa Amazónica.

At first it functioned solely as a bridge between local producers and restaurants in Lima, but over time it became an engine of change for the communities involved under the pact of sustainability and harmony with nature.

A roast paiche.

Manuel Vazquez

The first intention was for the product to reach the capital in good condition, regularly and without damaging the environment.

Opening that path was hard.

The jungle, abundant by nature, with great resources and a lot of life, is not easy to penetrate.

The fruits do not fall from the trees with the joy that the pictures of paradise show.

The climate is extreme and river transport is expensive.

On the other hand, communities are constantly tempted with better paying jobs, such as illegal extractive activities that represent the great threats in the Amazon: illegal mining, illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, and drug trafficking.

Schiaffino wanted to start with the paiche, that legendary fish with iridescent red scales that can weigh up to 200 kilos and measure almost two meters.

The world's second-largest freshwater fish (after the beluga sturgeon) has soft, juicy meat, is low in fat, and has no tiny bones.

The Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, the largest in Peru.Manuel Vázquez

“I had never seen such a big fish,” says Schiaffino, recalling the first time he saw one before him, “but it arrived in Lima dry, salty, and in poor condition because they brought it by road.

Fresco had to be amazing, right?

Los Jaguares, a cooperative made up of 10 freshwater fishermen, live in a wooden house that stands on stilts a few meters from the Yarina lake, without electricity or running water and in beds covered by mosquito nets.

In a few hours they will go out in canoes to fish for paiches, but also arowanas, piranhas and carachamas, a superfood often used to combat anemia in the region.

The cooperative of artisanal fishermen Los Jaguares. Manuel Vázquez

For as long as they can remember, Jaguars have depended on fishing for their livelihood and that of their families.

The difference is that now they do it according to an authorized quota that respects biological controls and minimum catch sizes, which has allowed the recovery of the ecosystem after long periods of scarcity.

At the same time, the fishermen defend this immense forest from the many offenders or looters who, at night, sneak out to hunt monkeys, manatees, pink dolphins or macaws.

“The offender is characterized by taking everything that can be taken.

Anything goes in the market.

The manatee and the buffo are sold as tallow, and the pups of sachavaca or monkeys, for wildlife trafficking.

Once we went to confront them, but from time to time they come back secretly,” says Watson Flórez, a 30-year-old fisherman and member of Los Jaguares.

A Theo cocktail.

Ingredients: Old Tom Gin Berto, Benedictine, dry Mancini and cocoa mucilage. Manuel Vázquez

Dawn in the so-called "jungle of mirrors", whose waters accurately reflect the sky, the clouds and the disordered profile of the trees.

Ten fishermen in canoes prepare their nets to undertake the task.

The paiche is powerful and intimidating, but it has a weak point that its captors will know how to take advantage of very well: it needs to surface every 20 minutes.

Schiaffino gets into one of the canoes.

Today he will act as a herdsman.

That is to say, who guesses the bubbles that the paiche emits before going out to breathe for the last time.

In the middle of the lake, the silence is occasionally interrupted by the squawk of a white heron.

Jaguars, oblivious to heat, humidity and mosquitoes, communicate by whistling and signing.

Keeping their balance inside the narrow canoe so as not to capsize, they will have to wait patiently until the appearance of a delicate bubble is translated into a call to action.

Chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino, in the "jungle of mirrors". Manuel Vázquez

Like all stories, Schiaffino's begins in childhood, when, fascinated by parrots, macaws, the spoonbill hummingbird or the cock-of-the-rock, he asks his parents to take him to discover the jungle.

They never did.

Instead, they allowed him to watch all the National Geographic documentaries that explored the Amazon.

It took many years for him to make that trip with his own means.

At that time he had already chosen his destiny: he would study in Lima, New York and Piedmont.

He would become a coveted chef among the best restaurants in Lima, he would have a television program and he would dream of opening his own restaurant.

His first stop was the Belén market in Iquitos, the capital of the Peruvian Amazon, where he became acquainted with products such as bijao leaves (which are used to wrap food), cecina (dried and smoked pork), suri ( aguaje tree worm) or the majás (cat-sized rodent).

A paiche ceviche prepared with sweet chili.

Manuel Vazquez

From that first trip, in the early 2000s, Schiaffino began a long investigation into Amazonian products that little by little he incorporated into his cuisine.

In 2004 he opened his first luxury restaurant, Malabar, and in 2011, an informal version, Ámaz, which eventually had two locations.

More than once it was part of the coveted list of Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants.

Before the pandemic, it served 7,000 diners a month, bought 5,000 bijao leaves, 5,000 bananas, 600 kilos of paiche, 300 of cocona and 100 of sweet chili, among many other products, which also contributed to improving living conditions. of the communities.

With the closure of restaurants after the pandemic, those numbers have fallen, although, thanks to Schiaffino, many restaurants in Lima have begun to take an interest and buy their supplies.

A bar in London even created a cocktail based on ají negro or tucupí, a thick sauce derived from yuca brava made by 24 women from the Bora and Huitoto ethnic groups, in Pucaurquillo, Loreto.

Currently, Schiaffino is focused on this Amazonian project and two other gastronomic initiatives: a

and a tapas bar.

Cook also in an

Amazonian

“No one had told them that the cooking they made is spectacular, that it is unique, nutritious, and that they have to continue eating the way their grandparents cooked.

No one had told them that.

They hid their traditional food and served you chicken fried rice.

We have changed that way of thinking,” she says.

Chef Schiaffino.Manuel Vázquez

Brittany is a town of 2,000 inhabitants located in the buffer zone of Pacaya Samiria, two hours by boat from the Yarina lake.

In recent years, new inhabitants have arrived, attracted by the operations of the PetroTal oil company.

The Bairro Alto area has grown in lodgings, warehouses and motorcycle taxis, although nothing has changed the spirit of the town as much as the arrival of ice.

The existence of an ice cube in the middle of the jungle was absolutely improbable until they managed to build a small plant operated by solar panels that is now managed by 16 women from the community.

Thanks to the ice, fishing is assured of transfer from the reserve to Iquitos and then to the capital, where it supplies the most exclusive restaurants.

María Luisa Ahuahuanari is 37 years old and has three children.

This is the first paid job of her life.

“She had never seen ice, just some bars that they brought from Iquitos.

I was impressed when I saw it,” she says, explaining that the plant produces 8,000 kilos of ice a month.

The money they earn is used to pay the salaries of the women and buy the sacks where they bag the ice.

The arrival of ice in the town of Brittany has been possible thanks to the installation of solar panels that employ 16 women.

Manuel Vazquez

The Jaguars prepare to leave for Brittany with isothermal bags full of fish.

Schiaffino watches over the process while he talks with Los Jaguares about the possibility of producing a kind of caviar from arowana.

After the exhausting day, with the last ray of light, an impromptu party begins.

It is cooked among friends, with firewood, under a flickering lamp.

Some cut the onion, others peel the piranhas and carachamas.

Pedro Miguel leads the improvised brigade.

Laughter is heard.

This corner of the jungle could be any corner of his own house, a house where he still has a lot of work to do.

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