Introduced Fruit Species as Food Heritage in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, Jujuy Province, Argentina

Abstract

European conquerors introduced peaches (Prunus persica) into northwestern Argentina early in the colonial period. Among communities in the Quebrada de Humahuaca peaches represent an important crop and food. This contribution explores whether peaches may be considered food heritage in this part of the Andes. The perception that this exotic species is perceived as heritage is founded in the traditional strategies of management in selecting for certain characteristics that have cultural associations and certain characteristics that dramatically reduced peach diversity at a regional scale. Thus, culture, crop, and environment are interlaced to form—at present—a set of 9 ethno-varieties with typical features and defined uses. People selected peaches with regard to preferences of consumption, and in recent times their importance to commercialization. Peaches, as in the case of different Andean crops, such as potatoes and corn, are important to local consumption and ethnic identity resulting in networks of exchange—fairs and markets—enabling these communities to share in the fruits of their ethnic communities. Heritage is characterized as the capacity to symbolically represent the identity of a community, through phenotypic distinctions of the local variety of peaches or “duraznos de la Quebrada” (peaches from the Quebrada).