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Showing posts from January, 2012

Quinoa Soup

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It took me nearly ten years to see Bolivia again. In my mind, I built up Bolivia to be this magical place where not only my childhood took place, but a place untouched by the evilness of industrialization, mass production, and globalization. (Lomas de Arena: Sand Dunes, Santa Cruz, Bolivia) Of course, a lot of things have changed. (La Paz, Bolivia) When I lived in Bolivia, I barely left my city, Santa Cruz. The cuisine of the altiplano (or the high altitude regions) is pretty different from the cuisine of the lowlands. La Paz, the capital, is dry, cold in the shade, hot in the sun, and you're basically living amongst the clouds. People here eat a lot more quinoa than they do in Santa Cruz. Most of the quinoa comes from the altiplano because quinoa is hardy and it can grow in high altitudes. The andes are the perfect place for quinoa to grow. During our trip to La Paz and the Salar de Uyuni, we had a lot of quinoa soup and cooked quinoa instead of rice.