In highland villages like Toroca, there is no separation into starter, main course, and dessert: around a nourishing base (a porridge of grains or dried tubers), one arranges what the land and herd have provided. The meal is organized by layers of preservation — fresh from the day, dried from the year, fermented from celebrations — and shared directly on a cloth spread on the ground (the mast'a), each person dipping into the common pot. Everything revolves around the papa and its dried forms, a legacy of high-altitude granaries that the colonial Church found already in place.

Long before parish registers, Andeans froze the papa at night and trampled it by day, for weeks on end, until they obtained a black, light tuber that keeps for years. It is the signature technique of the Toroca table: without it, no reserves to survive the dry season and the frosts of Potosí.