The celebration of The Corpus Christi in Cusco is one of the most important religious events in the Catholic calendar. Each town has a different way of celebrating it, but within the Peruvian towns, without a doubt, it is in the department of Cusco where this religious festival has a greater presence and form of manifestation.
The Corpus Christi as a religious date has a moveable date, although it is usually in the first weeks of June. In Cusco this event will always have a Thursday as the central day, although the day before the images that will go out in procession make their entrance to the city.
Among the images that will follow the tour on Thursday destined to celebrate this Christian date are at least 16 between Virgins and Saints who have been dressed with beautiful gold embroidery on their garments and who will go out through the streets after the Holy Sacrament that is carried by the Archbishop of the city to the cathedral, where all the effigies will remain for a week until they come out again the following Thursday.
The next Thursday the images will go out again together through the streets of Cusco to finally retire each one to their respective Church (14 in total where they came from).
The celebration of Corpus Christi gathers thousands of devout faithful around Marian representations, saints, Santiago and the Blessed Sacrament. In this festival there is no discrimination of race or social class because everyone has the right to attend and pay devotion to their patron or saint.
In this event, the first day of celebration, whoever visits the town to participate in the activities will be able to enjoy a unique traditional dish for this date and whose name is «chiriuchu» which translated into Spanish means «cold chili» is of a dish where the duality of the Andean world is even present; since ingredients from both the subsoil (known as female foods) and products found on the ground (known as male foods) are observed in it, among the former are the guinea pig, which is the main ingredient and which is roasted and on the other hand, marine products such as seaweed and roe, along with other accompaniments such as cheese and tortillas made with different herbs. It is not surprising that the exquisite fermented chicha is served to accompany this traditional dish.
Among other activities that are held in conjunction with the processions are different competitions, including music band contests together with representative troupes from each of the neighborhoods.
It is not strange either to see different gastronomic fairs for these dates, in which the «chiriuchu», the aforementioned dish, is the protagonist.
It is important to observe on these dates the different dance representations that the neighborhoods carry out in homage to the Lord and that recall part of the miscegenation of religious traditions in our country since their dances are interpretations of their gratitude, still in force, as part of the cult to their pre-Hispanic divinities.