From New Worlder, Nocholas Gill tells us about the origin of Lomo Saltado-everyone's favorite dish:
Lomo Saltado, a stir-fried beef dish found all across Peru, was born on Calle La Concepción in Lima, Peru’s Barrio Chino. The now pedestrian-only street, its name changed to Calle Capón, has become a tourist attraction. It has a gate at the entrance just like many of the world’s other Chinatowns and it is lined with shops selling kitchen products and imported food items and pirated DVDs, and restaurants where roasted ducks hang in the windows.
Lima’s Chinatown has a storied past that dates to the mid to late 1800’s when an influx of mostly Cantonese immigrants began to flock to Peru to work on the railroads, the guano islands, and coastal plantations after the abolition of slavery in the country. During the transpacific voyage many of these immigrants worked as cooks, a job they continued when they reached land. Sometime in the 1920’s, after offices for Chinese import companies like the Wing Fat Co. and the Wo Chong Co. opened, the first Chinese restaurants began to appear, and the Barrio Chino took shape.
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