flipCampaign charqui (salt- and frost-dried meat)
Campaign charqui (salt- and frost-dried meat)
Why this dish? Without charqui, no guerrilla warfare: dried meat could be carried for weeks in saddlebags and allowed Juana's Amazonas to fight far from any base, in the valleys and heights of Tomina.
Strips of meat salted, then dried in the freezing air and high-altitude sun. Light, imperishable, it is eaten as is, grilled, or thrown into lawa to flavor it.
An army does not march on promises; it marches on what it can carry. We cut the meat thin as a leaf, rubbed it with salt, and the puna night did the rest — frost and sun, those are my true quartermasters. Hung from the saddle, it followed me from Toroca to Pintatora without ever turning. When the Spaniard thought to starve us, my people chewed their charqui laughing.
- •Llama, alpaca or beef — a quarter (base ingredient)
- •Rock salt — generously (preservative)
- •Freezing air and puna sun — several days (drying)
Campaign charqui (salt- and frost-dried meat)
Strips of meat salted, then dried in the freezing air and high-altitude sun. Light, imperishable, it is eaten as is, grilled, or thrown into lawa to flavor it.
Why this dish? Without charqui, no guerrilla warfare: dried meat could be carried for weeks in saddlebags and allowed Juana's Amazonas to fight far from any base, in the valleys and heights of Tomina.
An army does not march on promises; it marches on what it can carry. We cut the meat thin as a leaf, rubbed it with salt, and the puna night did the rest — frost and sun, those are my true quartermasters. Hung from the saddle, it followed me from Toroca to Pintatora without ever turning. When the Spaniard thought to starve us, my people chewed their charqui laughing.
Ingredients (period version)
- Llama, alpaca or beef — a quarter (base ingredient)
- Rock salt — generously (preservative)
- Freezing air and puna sun — several days (drying)
Ingredients
- Lean flank or beef shin — 1 kg (base ingredient)
- Coarse salt — 60 g (preservative)
- Cumin and ground Andean chili (optional) — 1 tsp (flavor)
Method
- Slice the meat into very thin strips (5 mm) along the grain.
- Rub each strip with salt (and spices if desired), stack, and let purge 12 h in a cool place.
- Pat dry, then dry: hang in a dry, ventilated place, or in a dehydrator at 60°C for 8–12 h, until the meat is rigid but pliable.
- Store in a cloth or jar. Eat as is, grilled over a flame, or rehydrated in a soup.
How it was made : The word charqui (from which English "jerky" comes) denotes a pre-Hispanic technique: salting combined with natural freeze-drying by the dry cold of the altiplano. It was the preserved meat of the entire Inca empire, inherited by peasants and 19th-century armies.
The contemporary twist : Crumble homemade charqui over a lawa or make it into chips for snacking at aperitif time, "Andean biltong" style.
Juana Azurduy · Charactorium
