Nikkei style cooking, the fusion of Japanese and Peruvian cuisines, is a big part of the gastronomic heritage of Peruvian culture. This cooking style tells a story of immigration and making a home far away from home through the resilience to new flavors while maintaining traditional techniques.  This story aims to give an insight on the origins of a Peruvian Japanese fusion dish called “tiradito”. By understanding the historical background of both Perú and Japan which allowed for this style of cooking to emerge, the story unveils centuries-old flavors and techniques that innovate into the gastronomical method of Nikkei cooking.
 
Growing up, my favorite food was sushi. With my family, we would go to this one Japanese restaurant a few blocks from our house every other weekend and we knew our order by heart: two yakimeshi orders, one shrimp tempura, half a tray of California rolls and half spicy tuna, one tray of ‘acevichado’ rolls and one ‘ceviche Nikkei style’ platter. All these dishes constituted a commonplace meal we would have at a Japanese restaurant in Peru. When I moved to Canada, however, I realized this wasn’t the case outside of Peru. 
 
Turns out, the flavors that I’d come to recognize as Japanese weren’t authentically Japanese. Later, I came to understand that what I had known as Japanese food was, in reality, Nikkei style cooking. 
 
The word Nikkei comes from the kanji “日経” which literally translates to ‘children of the sun’ and often refers to Japanese emigrants and their descendants. In Peru, Nikkei adopts a different meaning given the influence of Peruvian Japanese fusion style cuisine that has developed over the last century. 
 
But how come two countries that are divided by the vast Pacific Ocean are able to share such a rich cultural heritage that we’ve had to give its food a name? 
 
It all starts in the second half of the XIX century, in Japan it was the Meiji era, and in Peru the Aristocratic Republic. Back then, both countries were dealing with complimentary issues. On one hand, Japan had an overpopulation problem which was worsening unemployment indexes. On the other, Peru had an emergent sugarcane and cotton industries in their coast but no labor to sustain it. 
 
Therefore, under the then president, Augusto B. Leguía, the Peruvian government gave green light to the immigration of Japanese people under a job contract. Between 1899 and 1923 around 18 000 Japanese people immigrated to Peruvian coasts to work in agricultural labor. And, after this first wave, in 1924, immigration was opened to people without a contract, and the families of those first immigrants were able to join them after they had already established themselves in the country.
 
Over time, Japanese people and their descendants, were able to adapt their own cooking styles to Peruvian flavors and ingredients in search for a home away from home. 
 
Let’s take a look at a dish called “tiradito”, for instance, which most local Japanese and Peruvian restaurants will sell in the Peruvian coast. The dish is said to be a fusion between the Peruvian ceviche and the traditional Japanese sashimi. 
 
Its name comes from the word “estirado”, which means stretched, and refers to the longish strips in which fish is cut. The dish combines Japanese style cuts of sashimi and the method of “cooking” the raw fish in lemon popularized in Peru. 
 
It sounds simple when presented as the product of its parts, but the history of both dishes lies in the development of ancient civilizations. 
 
The dish ceviche is said to have been created some 1700 years ago with the pre-Hispanic culture of the Mochicas in the northern coast of Peru.
 
In their time, ceviche was cooked in a marginally different way than what we understand ceviche to be today. The fish, instead of being prepared with lemon, was prepared with a citric fruit called “tumbo” or with “chicha”, a type of beer made from fruits or cereals. 
 
Time went by and when the Spanish arrived disrupting the Inca Empire, they introduced fruits like lemon, and a type of sour orange, not only to give the fish flavor but also for its conservation. From then on, lemon became the main ingredient to simulate cooking the raw fish. After, red onion, sweet potato and choclo, a type of corn indigenous to Peru, were added to make the dish a more complete meal.
 
In the case of sashimi (“刺身”), while there has been record of Japanese people eating raw fish as early as the 8th century, initially it was called namasu (“鱠”). This this was constituted by thinly sliced pieces of raw fish dressed with vinegar. 
 
The practice and art of sashimi, which means pierced or sliced flesh or meat, was established during the Edo period (1603-1868). The thinly sliced pieces became bite size as to be easy to grab with chopsticks and, instead of being drenched in vinegar, the fish was dipped in soy sauce and topped with wasabi.
 
Because of the simplicity of the dish, its mastery relied heavily on the freshness of the fish and the skill to cut the fish to perfection. This cut was done with a hôchô (“包丁”), a Japanese kitchen knife, which was exclusively yielded by the itamae (“板前”), the chief cook, or he who, as the name literally implies, stands “before the board”.
 
Together, Peruvian and Japanese influences created a dish that had the satisfying sting of the pungent lemon juice but also the care and skill of the knife. 
 
Over time, Nikkei cooks have innovated and given the simple dish some variations. For instance, instead of marinating the fish in lemon juice, some drench it in a cream of ají Amarillo. Ají Amarillo, or Peruvian Yellow Chili Pepper, is part of the Peruvian cuisine “holy trinity” along with red onion and garlic. This variation of the tiradito complements the lemon juice with a fruitier flavor and bright yellow color. And, while the Ají Amarillo is a bit spicy, it has nothing on the variation of tiradito with Rocoto peppers. Rocoto, also a staple in Peruvian cuisine, give the dish a striking orange color and crisper almost grassy flavor. Given the different flavor profiles, restaurants will often serve them as a trio: “Tiradito Tricolor”. 
 
Another variation created, and often included with the trio, is a sauce with black olives, fruits that, dissimilar to ají Amarillo and Rocoto which are indigenous to South America, were brought to America by Cristopher Columbus. The olives balance the pungent flavors of the lemon and chilis by providing a softer and slightly bitter taste while introducing a creamier texture given their meatier consistency.
 
In this way, the ‘tiradito’ isn’t the story of one people but of multiple, and how they were able to meet in the middle and produce something different.
 
Together, method and flavor, create a dish that not only transcends country borders, but it speaks of a hybridity identity that most, if not all, Peruvian people possess today. Whether it is Peruvian indigenous, Spanish colonizer or European, Japanese, Afro-Peruvian, or the product of all of them, without this history, despite its oftentimes destructive nature, we wouldn’t have the gastronomic diversity that we do today.
 
In this way, I understood I was right. I wasn’t eating authentic Japanese food. But that didn’t make it any less authentic. My sense of authenticity was displaced. Nikkei style cooking is authentic for the descendants of those first Japanese immigrants who made a home of this foreign country, who worked its land, and who innovated to make this new place feel like home in a territory that, generations later, is rightfully theirs as well.

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