Chicha (Corn Beer) in Peruvian Life
“...the guest eats and then is offered chicha. The ethnologist visiting a number of houses during a day finds this hospitality agreeable, but also a burden upon his capacity.”
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The principal drink for all persons above the age of puberty is chicha, a maize beer. Three main meals are consumed by the Mocheros, breakfast, lunch, and dinner or supper, but they are interspersed with lunches, called causas (verb, causear). Even when guests do not drop in or the family does not go out, it is normal to enjoy at least one causa during the morning and at least one during the afternoon. A lunch of this sort may consist of anything from a small bit of fish and a morsel of yuca to a meal consisting of several dishes, and it is always washed down with mature chicha, if it can be obtained.
A friend visiting a house is always invited to sit down at the table in the arbor or in the backyard. Within a few minutes the lady of the house sets out a causa, which may consist of no more than a couple of boiled eggs, and the guest eats and then is offered chicha. The ethnologist visiting a number of houses during a day finds this hospitality agreeable, but also a burden upon his capacity.
If one comes uninvited, it is customary to offer money to the hostess to pay for the chicha and food, although this will be refused if one is a compadre of the household or has elsewhere kept up his end of the entertaining. In addition to household hospitality of this sort, food and drink are obtainable upon payment in-many houses operated on a small-scale commercial basis. Many a housewife augments the family income by making chicha and causas to sell. The chicha sells, according to quality, for 10 and 15 centavos a liter, and an ordinary causa is worth 10 centavos. Owing to the rigid etiquette of drinking which requires even a commercial hostess to drink with her guests, many of these women who sell chicha all day become more or less thoroughly intoxicated by evening. Such places of refreshment are called chicherias, although the word is less used than in certain other parts of Peru.
Some of the more conservative families still eat on Mora mats placed on the dirt floor, but the great majority now have rough rectangular tables, somewhat like those for kitchen use in United States farmhouses, around which they sit to eat and drink on benches made of sawed boards.
There is no rule against men and women eating together and for ordinary meals and small gatherings, this usually takes place. At festive meals the women of the household are usually in the kitchen during the meal, occupied with the preparation and serving of the food, and at any meal the women are usually up and down, serving the meals, moving back and forth between table and kitchen.
All responsibility of preparing, cooking, and serving the food and chicha is customarily in the hands of the women. Although the women do the work they also have the authority, and a man is supposed to secure the agreement of his wife before issuing invitations. If a visitor drops in, the man will ask his wife if she has something in the way of a causa and some chicha. If he wishes to buy chicha, he usually asks his wife for the money. To be sure, certain men dominate their wives or companions sufficiently to make these requests more in the nature of a command than a pleading, but in the pattern and phrasing of the eating and drinking situation the woman is supposed to have the controlling role.
Proper relaxation is required for the healthful digestion of food after eating, according to local belief. Reading, riding horseback, and sexual intercourse within an hour or two after a meal are regarded as extremely dangerous. This is summed up in a frequently quoted proverb, which I believe has a general Peruvian distribution:
Despues de comer,
ni un papelito para leer,
ni caballo, ni tnujer.
(After eating,
neither a paper to read,
nor a horse, nor a woman.)
During my time in Moche one of the local forasteros was suddenly taken ill and, 2 days after being removed to the Trujillo hospital, died of a ruptured duodenal ulcer, according to hospital attaches. He was a strong, healthy man in his thirties, and the Mocheros were agreed that he met his end by reason of his habit of immediately mounting his horse and riding off to his work after eating.
This drink and the customs concerned with it deserve a fairly long section, not because of its inherent interest for tipplers unacquainted with the beverage, but because, for better or for worse, it plays so large a part in Moche life.
Maize grown in the countryside is used principally for roasting ears (choclos) and for making chicha. Certainly the latter use absorbs by far the major part of the maize consumed in the community. The consumption of chicha, according to my data, seems to average about 2 L per day per adult (over 18 years of age) for its "normal" or thirst quenching properties, as an accompaniment of meals etc., with an additional liter per day per adult as a conservative estimate for chicha consumed because of its festive properties. These are only estimates, based on relatively small samples of families, but seem to be on the conservative side, if anything; for when the Mocheros become festive, the amount of chicha consumed is prodigious. The fact that they are, for the most part, independent proprietors of their lands allows them the leisure and the opportunity for such relaxations.
The word "chicha" is in general use for rustic drinks in all parts of Spanish America, and it does not seem to be a term native to Peru. The Quechua terms are "acca, aka, asuha, khusa, aqha." The material preserved in the Museo Arqueologico "Rafael Larco Herrera" in Chiclin seems to show clearly that chicha, or a similar beverage, was in common use during Mochica times. Many informants have insisted that large sealed pots containing chicha in a "good state of preservation," i.e., potable, have been recovered from the Moche ruins themselves, although I have found no one who has personally seen or tasted this allegedly well-aged brew….
In Moche there is a sort of cycle involving eating and chicha drinking. It is thought necessary for adults to "settle" (sentar) all meals except breakfast with chicha (although some individuals do not hesitate to "settle" breakfast as well). At least one bowl of chicha is essential for this process. "Ya vamos asentar el almuerzo" simply means, "Now that we have had lunch, let's have a drink." Conversely, it is regarded as unseemly and unhealthy to consume any considerable amount of chicha on an empty stomach. Since one bowl of the liquor after lunch frequently induces the desire to have another, and so on, drinking and eating frequently progress hand in hand from midday until bedtime.
Fresh chicha (fresco) with little or no alcoholic content is used, if available, as a thirst quencher at breakfast and to be carried in bottles to the fields, etc. This fresh drink is, of course, merely the regular product before it has fermented (when it is called chicha madura). Judging by its effects (and not on myself alone), well-matured chicha must have an alcoholic content close to that of a heavy ale, perhaps 12 to 14 percent by volume.
Gillin, John P. 1907-1973. Moche: a Peruvian Coastal Community. Washington: U.S. Govt. Pring. Off, 1947.
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