By Jack Donnelly

 

Eat like an Inca! You can enjoy one of the culinary delights of the ancient Incas of Peru right here in modern Costa Rica. It’s a dish that still thrills my palate.

 

It is called arracacha in English and arracache in Costa Rican Spanish. In fact, in Quechua (the Inca language, still widely spoken in Peru) arracacha (or racacha) is singular and arracache is plural. For some reason English took the singular noun and Costa Rican Spanish took the plural.

 

Arracacha is a root vegetable that belongs to the same family as parsnips, carrots, and parsley. It grows best at higher altitudes, ideally between 6,000 and 8,000 feet, but it may be grown at lower elevations.

 

In Costa Rica arracache is generally served as picadillo, finely chopped, grated or shredded, and mixed with meat, sweet pepper, garlic, onion, etc. If it comes with tortillas, it is called gallos de arracache.

 

Look for picadillo de arracache or gallos de arracache in restaurants that serve comida típica, traditional Tico cuisine. You can purchase arracache whole or already peeled and shredded (this saves a lot of work). You can even find it shredded and frozen in one kilo bags. It is available in the San Jose central market and some other municipal markets or town ferias, weekly farmers’ markets.

 

Arracache is a dish that seems to have almost disappeared from Costa Rican cuisine, but it is now making a comeback. I began looking for it after several elderly gentlemen wistfully told me picadillo de arracache was their favorite holiday dish when they were younger, but was now difficult to find. Some of them got altogether misty talking about it.

 

Arracache is a gastronomic treasure that should not be missed.

 

About the Author

Jack Donnelly has been a life-long enthusiast of Latin American folk culture. As a young man, during the 1960s, he studied cultural anthropology at the Universidad de las Américas in Mexico City. He went on to volunteer with the U. S. Peace Corps in Guatemala.

Now, Donnelly lives in Heredia, Costa Rica. He travels around the country investigating and documenting folkloric events. Donnelly is the author of COSTA RICA: Folk Culture, Traditions, and Cuisine which is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.