The Inca Food Trail: more taste than travel

The Inca Food Trail is a culinary fundraising trip organized by Rikolto in November 2017. Along with Belgian chef Sofie Dumont and 15 adventurers with a passion for food, the tour is an opportunity to discover Peruvian gastronomy within sustainable food systems. With this trip, the participants support Rikolto and its projects aimed at sustainable food systems.

12 days of Inca Food Trail were filled with colourful and tasty experiences and encounters. Inspired by young entrepreneurial farmers, the participants savoured Peruvian cuisine, specialty coffees and fine aromatic cocoa, enjoying a bean to bar experience. Activities like spending a night at a coffee farm, making the best fusion chocolates, harvesting native potatoes at 3800m, and engaging in a ceviche workshop, were some of the highlights of this trip.

I think it is very important that there are people who farm out of love for their product. People who are still growing old varieties instead of thinking how much I can get out of my soil.

Sofie Dumont Chef

I think it is very important that there are people who farm out of love for their product. People who are still growing old varieties instead of thinking how much I can get out of my soil.

However, the Inca Food Trail was not only about gastronomy in the travel experience. It raised awareness and knowledge amongst the participants about what Rikolto does in the field. Rikolto means 'harvest' in Esperanto. Not only do we want farmers to have a brilliant harvest, but we especially want to harvest great new ideas and solutions to improve our food system.

Harvesting native patatoes at 3800m in Cusco (Paru Paru community)

In this way, Rolando, a farmer who participated in Rikolto´s first project to encourage youth involvement in agriculture in Peru, now, 6 years later, opened the doors of his tourist farm to visitors like us.

Also Elvira and Alexander are young farmers supported by Rikolto. Their story can be seen in the Elvira mini-documentary, where their passion for coffee, cocoa and their farm, reflect the experiences of the Inca Food Trail participants during their visit in Central Amazon (Pangoa). Rikolto invests in the training of young farmers such as Elvira and Alexander. They, in turn, pass on knowledge to other young people.

At Rolando´s farm

Elvira

Cocoa fermentation

Sofie Dumont, Belgian chef, mother, media figure and mainly concerned with everything that has to do with food, accompanied the Inca Food Trail. Sofie, speaking the same language as the chefs, discovered together with the participants Peruvian cuisine and brought out various culinary moments. Visiting Mistura, the largest food festival in South America, making dinner with local ingredients in Central Amazon, or presenting a cook-off between the Inca Food Trail participants together with Peruvian pastry chef Juan Carlos López, provided a delightful culinary link between food, farmers and chefs.

Chef Juan Carlos López and Sofie Dumont

Cook-off

Rolando´s farm

Real food is as fresh, unprocessed and as varied as possible for me. That can just as well be a waffle. If you can choose between a waffle from a stall or one in a package, you would prefer the first of course. A real waffle that gets bad after a day because there is no artificial flavors, no preservatives in it. That is real food!

Sofie Dumont Chef

Real food is as fresh, unprocessed and as varied as possible for me. That can just as well be a waffle. If you can choose between a waffle from a stall or one in a package, you would prefer the first of course. A real waffle that gets bad after a day because there is no artificial flavors, no preservatives in it. That is real food!

Each participant raised funds for Rikolto in their own creative way: from the organization of auctions, parties and dance workshops, to the sale of exclusive clothes or delicious soups. Their valuable support helps to change the recipe of our food system, reaching 80,000 families of small-scale producers of 134 farmers' organizations worldwide.

You can find more photos about this first edition of the Inca Food Trail on the facebook page