Paper short abstract:

How war changes our palate and creates a national idea of what is a national cuisine and other countries' cuisines? This paper explores the relationship between USA and Peru during the Peruvian internal war through memories of war food and the consumption of Meals Ready to Eat by military personnel.

Paper long abstract:

In the past decade, Peru has been experiencing a strong effort from the State to build a national discourse of what Peruvian food is and how it should taste, but what was Peruvian food before then? In the late 80's when the Peruvian State had already declared war on terrorist parties like Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement- MRTA, high-rank military personnel was receiving training by the US Armed Forces at the US Army School of the Americas being this the first time where some of them tried a Meal Ready to Eat (MRE). In this paper, I explore the impact that the US military food and food technology have had in this effort and how it has impacted the changes in the Peruvian palate and food production and consumption. This study is an ethnography of and object that uses the MRE's to explore the military and cultural impact of US in Peru's military ideology and the food production and consumption during wartime. I traced the influence of MRE's and wartime food through military memories and archival data of US food imports to Peru to understand why in a time were imported foods, were costly and hard to find the Peruvian State invested in imported food like the MRE's, and how these imports relate to what Peruvians recognize as American food.