Have you eaten sushi before? Many people enjoy sushi because it’s light, fresh, healthy and very tasty. Perhaps you didn’t know that Perú has another famous dish made with uncooked fish. This dish is the pride of Peru. It’s the national dish, and each part of Perú has their own regional twist on the dish. It’s becoming so famous that it’s seen in restaurants in other countries too! The name of this dish? Ceviche!
I’m a big language nerd, so I was interested to find out where the name of the dish came from. Turns out, the word ceviche has a complex backstory. Perú was ruled by a wide range of civilizations and empires, the most powerful and well-known of which were the Incas. In 1531, the Spanish conquistadores overthrew the Incan Empire and brought their own language, which gradually supplanted the most common indigenous language of the time, Quechua. The Quechua word for ‘fresh fish’ is siwichi, pronounced ‘see-wee-chee’. This could be the root of the modern word ceviche. However, the Spanish language has a word escabeche, which refers to a method of curing foods in acidic substances like vinegar. The dish ceviche is completely dependent on this method, although Peruvians use lime juice in place of vinegar.
