This is a small, protein-rich legume similar to a garbanzo bean, though chocho doesn’t have the same soft texture and has, in my opinion, a better flavor. Chocho doesn’t seem to be a staple ingredient on the Peruvian coast, but here in the mountains, it’s prepared with lime juice, red onion, chili and cancha, just like ceviche. In fact, in my region, you can even buy cevichocho, which as the name might suggest is a mix of ceviche, usually made with trout instead of saltwater fish, with chocho instead of sweet potato slices. It’s a fusion of the coastal and Andean traditions, and is deeply linked to the agricultural traditions of my region of Ancash. I tried googling cevichocho to find a recipe, and it seems like the online food bloggers of Perú don’t know about it! It must be a much more local dish than I initially had thought! Lastly, while I live in the Andes, I did get a chance to visit Perú’s jungle region or the selva last year. There too, the changing ingredients of ceviche reflect the dish’s versatility and links to the local environment. In the Amazon rainforest, the chances of getting fresh seafood from the Pacific are just about zero. However, the Amazon is home, as you may know, to the largest array of biodiversity on earth, and there’s lots of local fish to be used in ceviche. I tried ceviche made with doncella, a kind of catfish whose name literally means maiden, which I thought was funny, and with paiche, known in English as the famous Arapaima.
