Sharing Turrón de Doña Pepa in Colombo

Turrón de doña Pepa. Image on Flickr by user Alejandro Matos (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

It was the evening of Wednesday, November 29 and many of us GVers were at the Mount Lavinia Hotel lobby, as we had agreed on having dinner at some of the restaurants close to the hotel. I was willing to go, although I was tired and still dealing with jet lag.

Two days earlier, I arrived in Colombo after traveling over 36 hours from Lima, my Peruvian hometown. It'd been a very long journey, the longest part of it involved a 15-hour flight from Sao Paulo to Dubai. Many emotions were mixed inside me, emotions that got more and more intense as the departure day approached. There was excitement and joy that boosted my spirit, but also some curiosity about how to survive a 15-hour flight.

Always willing to share flavors from my country with my fellow GVers, I took some Peruvian desserts with me. I had mazamorra morada and chicha morada for my secret summitteer and for some friends. And for the first time, I also took a package of turrón de doña Pepa to share with as many Gvers as possible.

Traditionally, turrón de doña Pepa was found only in October, a month related to Lord of the Miracles and its processions around the Lima Historic Center. Now, however, you can find turrón all year round and don't have to wait for a special month to buy it.

The turrón comes in a block, in this case, a 250-gram block that has to be cut into pieces to be eaten. So I took the turrón with its original wrapping and went to the restaurant to ask for a knife. The manager gave me the strangest look…but everything became clear to him once I showed him the turrón and let him know what my intentions were.

The manager himself looked for a knife and was kind enough to cut the turrón into edible pieces. While he was dealing with the task, I explained to him what it was and I insisted that he should keep a piece to try it.

With my turrón distributed in two plates, I went to the lobby and started to offer it to the GVers who were hanging around. Everybody was curious about it, but I could tell that after trying a piece, some were more pleased with the flavor than others.

Three GVers asked me why I didn't bring some cebiche with me. Cebiche is a Peruvian flagship dish. We Peruvians are obnoxiously proud of our cuisine, so my national pride made me smile, “No cebiche this time, guys. Try some turrón instead”.

After 15 minutes, the turrón was gone. The plates had only crumbs left. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the moment at all, blame it on the jet lag!

Amidst the laughs and the explanations of what I was offering, I had a wonderful feeling that I was sharing a little bit of my country with people from almost every corner of the world. And that's one of the things that fascinates me about this wonderful community; how enriching it is to share a moment, a little bit of my corner of the world with someone who, at the same time, shares a little bit of their corner of the world with me, in an endless learning process.

We really are Global Voices!

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