Ice cream culture in Peru [Featured]

March 11, 2009

I recently came across an excellent blog by Ana Otazu, a Peruvian woman from Arequipa who now lives in the UK. She comments on the differences between UK life and Peruvian life in both Spanish and English, attempting to explain these differences to her two audiences. Here she explains Peruvian’s love of ice cream, though leaving out the associated health myths that are widely believed here… perhaps for another blog.

In most of the larger cities in Peru the weather is mild all year long, so eating an ice cream is always good. The ice cream tradition in Peru probably comes from Italian inmigrants but now everyone enjoys them.

D’Onofrio’s ice cream parlour in Miraflores, Lima, Peru

The first big ice cream company in Peru, called D’Onofrio, was founded by Italian immigrants and was developed into a big company. They are still called D’Onofrio but now the brand belongs to a transnational corporation. They sell ice cream in little trolleys, and on bicycles and they also have ice cream parlours called ‘heladerias’, or ‘gelaterias’ in Italian that just sell ice cream in many flavours and presentations.

Ice cream flavours in Peru are very exotic, one of the most popular is lucuma flavour, a fruit originally from Peru that has a flavour like a mix of toffee, maple syrup and even sweet potato. My mother has a lucuma tree in her garden so we used to make our own sometimes.

But apart from D’Onofrio there are many more brands of ice cream and many very posh gelaterias…

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