Paraguayan cuisine is the set of dishes and culinary techniques of Paraguay. It has a marked influence of the Guaraní people combined with the Spanish cuisine and other marked influences coming from the immigration received by bordering countries such as Italian cuisine and German cuisine. The city of Asunción is the epicenter of the distinctive gastronomy that extends in current Paraguay and its areas of influence, which is the reason why it is considered the "mother of the gastronomy" of the Río de la Plata. It is worth clarifying that in the Paraguayan society, the exchange of knowledge between mestizos, creoles and cario-guaraní people occurred before the Jesuit missions.
History Pre-Columbian period
There are references dating back to 1567 from the German chronicler and military man Ulrich Schmidl, who published in Bavaria his experiences in Paraguay and the Río de la Plata, whose testimonies coincide with other chroniclers on the anthropophagic customs of many Native Americans, involving the Guaraní, Carios, Caribes, Mexicas, Araucanos, Incas, etc. According to chef and gastronomic historian Vidal Domínguez Díaz, the gastronomic wealth of the Carios along with the gastronomic wealth of the Spaniards resulted in the actual Paraguayan food. The most prominent example is the Cario-guaraní gastronomic technique, in which wild meat on the stake is replaced by beef. The Paraguayan Sunday or festive preference for asado stems from the seven cows and a bull that arrived in Asunción in 1556.
The Guarani had a diet based on wild animals and cornbread, starch with animal fat, but they were totally unaware of the use of milk, beef, cheese, and eggs. Although the Guaraní and Carios inhabited a large part of the American soil, the first Spanish-Guaraní syncretism occurred in 1537 with the founding of Asunción when the contact with the Carios occurred, in which short time later the cattle were introduced into that zone. For this reason, Asunción is considered the mother of the Río de la Plata gastronomy, since the expedition that would found the city of Buenos Aires (and some of the Argentine Littoral) came from Asunción and was made up of Spaniards, 66 Paraguayan young men (among them , the only woman) and 1,500 Guaraníes. These expeditions brought cattle to these zones in order to populate the Pampas region.
Vicereine period
It is considered wrong to label Paraguayan gastronomy as "Guarani gastronomy". The gastronomy of Paraguay is born from the fusion of Spanish culinary tradition and the Cairo-Guarani culinary tradition that were developed through influences of the Franciscan missionaries, the Spaniards and the Asuncenos (people of Asuncion), whose influence took place in Asunción and its surrounding areas. Towns like Tobatí, Altos, Areguá, Ypané, Guarambaré, Itá and Yaguarón are current examples of how the Paraguayan culture was developed far outside and away from the mercantile influence of the Jesuits. When the Jesuits were expelled from the area in 1767, the natives returned to their natural habitat (the missionary jungle), but they no longer went to Asunción and its influence area in order to teach or educate their traditions, proof of that is the extinction of Jesuit ceramics, as opposed to the Franciscan ceramics that still lives in Itá, Areguá, and Tobatí.
The cooking based on the Cairo-Guaraní life consists of game, fish, grain cultivation, techniques, and methods of cooking from the utensils they developed. The first records of true Cario-Guaraní Spanish syncretism took place during the age of the foundation of Asunción and its surroundings, where they subsequently founded the Franciscan missions of Altos, Atyrá, Guarambaré, Itá, etc. In the Governorate of Paraguay they circumscribed the Catholic jurisdiction called the "Paraguaria Province". This province, then dependent on the Viceroyalty of Peru, covers the regions of Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and parts of Bolivia, Brazil and Chile (between 1604 and 1617). Since 1617, the Paraguaria Province was broken up from the government of the Río de la Plata and the governorate of Paraguay, being part of the jurisdiction of the latter. After, this region belonged to the ephemeral Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (1776–1810). The culture developed in Greater Paraguay was very strong, as the Guaraní people were used by the conquistadors and the evangelizers as intermediaries with other Native Americans. For such motives, the Paraguayan culture that characterizes Asunción was firmly conserved itself in the region, and in turn extended toward zones where the cattle were introduced later, like the foundation of Corrientes in 1588, the oldest city in the Argentine Northeast.Corrientes is the oldest city in the entire . Formosa, Chaco and Misiones provinces have towns founded since the late 1800s and early 1900s, so Paraguayan cuisine arrived much later in those provinces.
In the binnacles (of travelers like the German Ulrich Schmidl) and in the historical registry of the Vicereine age, it appears in various paragraphs that the Carios-Guaranís (a tribe that inhabited the zone of Asunción) prepared cakes and breads based on cassava, corn and sweet corn mixed with animal grease, known as "mbuyapé" (bread in Guaraní). The Cario-Guaraní food was complemented with Spanish food provided to the Spaniards from the old continent. To this it is owed the introduction of the cattle in 1556, and after these new dishes were obtained, like beef, sheep meat, milk, eggs, cheese, etc. In this way, the foods with ingredients from the Cario-Guaraní food base (corn, cassava, pumpkin, sweet potato, etc.) were mixed with ingredients brought by Spaniards (meat, milk, eggs, cheeses, etc.). This union gave way to foods that have been consumed since the Vicereine age until the present day. Thus, the recipes of the typical Paraguayan foods based on ingredients like cassava, corn, cheese, milk, and cattle took their origins in this context.
Republican period
In this period the mestizo cuisine as such is solidified. This cuisine comes from the fusion of the knowledge and elements of the Guarani people with the trades brought by the Spaniards, like the updating of utensils and forms of cooking. It evolved in the age of the Lopez with the knowledge of the mestizo cuisine and capitalizing on all elements the country produced, added to new recipes thanks to the novelty of that epoch because of Carlos Antonio López and later with Francisco Solano López and Madame Lynch. During this period and the post-war years, it is noted how they took advantage of many products. Countless recipes that reuse meats in a variety of formulas were commonly found in this period. The use of cassava and corn to make food last was very common.
Between 1537 and 1870, European immigration was slow, above all in the independent era due to the late international opening-up during the mandate of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia. More recently, during the government of Carlos Antonio López, the remaining South American and European countries finally recognized the independence of Paraguay, like the case of France and Argentina. The European political migration comes into play after the Paraguayan War, a phenomenon that transformed and makes up the current society of Paraguay. In this way, the gastronomy begins to inherit traded elements of the immigrants that began arriving in Paraguay at the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s, setting the bases for the modern cuisine with processed ingredients and adapted to the way of life in the 21st century. The principal influences that enriched the Paraguayan culinary art came from the Italians and the Germans, overall all that has to do with the consumption of pasta, desserts, drinks, and cold cuts, now rooted in Paraguay.
The gastronomy of Paraguay has common American elements like the use of corn, cassava, peanuts, and beans. The inheritance of natural resources, the Guarani culture, and the mix with the European culture give Paraguay a unique gastronomy compared to the rest of America, keeping more similarities with countries of the Río de la Plata region. Elements like chipa and tereré are spread throughout all of the Southern Cone of South America thanks to migrations from Paraguay. In 2017 the Ministry of the National Secretary of Culture in Paraguay decided:“To declare as Immaterial Cultural Heritage of Paraguay the production, artisan and traditional elaboration of four typical Paraguayan foods currently validated as the Vori-Vori, the Locro, the Sopa Paraguaya, and the Yopará (a mix of beans and locro); as well as their recipes, knowledge, practices and flavors transmitted from generation to generation and all the material, immaterial elements associated to them (corn, in its different varieties) as a cultural manifestation.”
Ingredients
Fruits, vegetables and legumes The most consumed and cultivated fruits are pineapple, banana, guava, guavira pytã, guavirami, apepú, yakarati'a, pakuri, ñandypa, ñangapiry, aguaí, aratiku, mburukuja, mamón, mango, melon, watermelon, orange, strawberry, ingá, yvapurû, yvapovõ and tarumá. According to Paraguayan fruit growing, to harvest fruit varieties the following calendar must be considered: fruits such as guava are harvested from January to March; citrus fruits, from March to October; grapes, pineapples, and plums, from December to January; avocado, from April to May; watermelon and melon, from September to April; while bananas are harvested all year round except for very cold times.
Among the vegetables, leaves such as chard, lettuce, green onion, spinach, bok choy, cabbage, chicory and parsley stand out. Among the flowers are broccoli, cauliflower, and artichoke. In the subgroup of fruits there are pumpkin, melon, tomato, locote, and eggplant. The most consumed and grown roots are carrots, turnips, radishes, ginger, beets, and sweet potatoes; while bulbs such as garlic and onion are part of the base ingredient in many Paraguayan dishes. The use of soy and moringa is also present in Paraguayan cuisine, with an export of approximately 15,000 kilos of the latter added to the production of pills. Although the consumption of moringa does not go beyond an infusion in mate and tereré, several culinary things associated with moringa are the use of leaves in order to make bread, cakes, soups, or tortillas. Moringa leaves also serve to introduce proteins, vegetable oils, and fibers to the food.
In Paraguay, certain species of legumes are grown such as peas, lentils, chickpeas and beans, especially the variety kumandá pytâ, San Francisco, señorita bean and kumandá yvyra'i.
Paraguay is the third largest producer of yerba mate in the world, after Argentina and Brazil. Something that is not exempt when it comes to natural inputs is the massive demand for medicinal plants used for mate and tereré, which are also known as "pohâ ñanâ "and were incorporated into Paraguayan society. One fact regarding the sustainable use of the species developed in the country is that there are actually some proposals in order to protect and patent the use of these plants and the resources of traditional medicine through international treaties, precisely to protect this tradition and prevent companies exploit biodiversity by manufacturing products without the authorization of the natives. Every August 1, the "National Poha Ñana Day" is celebrated.
Meats and dairy