Among the Incas, meals are not served in successive courses (appetizer/main/dessert) but as two large meals a day: one in the morning after sunrise, one in the late afternoon. All the food is placed at once on woven mats, directly on the ground, and everyone sits around it. For the coya, dishes are served in qeros (ceremonial goblets), fine ceramic plates, and for grand occasions, gold and silver tableware. Quinoa soups, tubers cooked under ash, boiled corn (mote), roasted llama or guinea pig meats, dried fish from the coast, and sweet fruits make up a single tableau, accompanied continuously by chicha poured by the acllacuna, the chosen women.

The small Andean chili (uchu in Quechua) seasons almost all Inca savory dishes, from the humblest to the most royal. Dried, ground on a grinding stone (batán), or added fresh, it brings the heat that defines the taste of the Tawantinsuyu table. Native to the Andes, it is not anachronistic here: it is the spicy heart of Inca cuisine long before the arrival of the Spanish.