Hear about Chuno, a traditional Andean freeze-dried potato dish, also the effect of climate change on the drying process of the food
Overview of chuño, a traditional Andean dish using freeze-dried potatoes.
University College Cork, Ireland (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
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Transcript
One of the main things is their staple crop is known as Chuno. And it's traditional freeze-dried potatoes. And it's made by laying out small potatoes on the ground overnight in a cold location at high altitudes. And they need to freeze completely in order to process this Chuno.
And once the potatoes freeze, they compress the water out with their feet the next day. And that's done a couple of times until they're completely dried out by the sun. And they can then be stored up to five years, so a lot longer than regular potatoes.
So it makes them very important as a foodstuff and also insurance in case of other crop failures. But the problem is because of climate change, temperatures are not dropping as low as they were before. So in the past, it used to take maybe two nights to make the Chuno, for them to freeze enough.
And now it's taking up to two weeks. So communities are afraid that they're not going to be able to make the Chuno in the future. And they don't really have another staple food with such long-term storage capacities to replace that. So it's a big issue.
And once the potatoes freeze, they compress the water out with their feet the next day. And that's done a couple of times until they're completely dried out by the sun. And they can then be stored up to five years, so a lot longer than regular potatoes.
So it makes them very important as a foodstuff and also insurance in case of other crop failures. But the problem is because of climate change, temperatures are not dropping as low as they were before. So in the past, it used to take maybe two nights to make the Chuno, for them to freeze enough.
And now it's taking up to two weeks. So communities are afraid that they're not going to be able to make the Chuno in the future. And they don't really have another staple food with such long-term storage capacities to replace that. So it's a big issue.