Among the Aymara of the Altiplano, individual plates with separate starter-main course-dessert are not served: everyone brings what they have and places it on large woven cloths (awayu, manta) spread on the ground. Dried tubers, toasted grains, dried meat, and herbs form a communal feast eaten by hand. The meal is organized around cold and altitude: foods freeze-dried by the night frost, grains that stick to the body, and the constant chewing of coca leaves (akulli) that punctuates the workday like the siege.

Cornerstone of Aymara cuisine: the bitter potatoes of the Altiplano are frozen at night, trampled by foot during the day to expel water, then dried in the freezing sun. Chuño keeps for years — it feeds villages in winter and troops during a siege. It appears in almost all of Bartolina's dishes.