Juana Azurduy at the table

In the Andes of Upper Peru, a meal is not served in successive courses: a multicolored woven aguayo cloth is spread on the ground, and each person places what they have brought on it — tubers, dried meat, grains, flatbreads. Everyone reaches into the center with their fingers, squatting in a circle. It is a communal, egalitarian, and mobile meal, perfect for a troop on the march: the "table" folds up and fits into a satchel. Around it, a hot infusion or corn drink is passed. The festive and the everyday are distinguished less by form than by abundance and fresh meat.

In the altiplano above 3,000 meters, potatoes are preserved by exposing them to freezing nights and then the day's sun, and treading on them to expel water: the result is chuño, an almost eternal dehydrated potato. It is the cornerstone of all Andean cuisine — including Juana's guerrilla rations — and the signature of a people who learned to tame the cold so as never to go hungry.