In some parts of Peru the Indians prepare a very fine flour from the yucca, and it is used for making fine kinds of bread, and especially a kind of biscuits called _biscochuelos_. The yucca roots are not good after they have been more than three days out of the earth, and even during that time they must be placed in water, otherwise green or black stripes appear on them, which in the cooking assume a pale red color. Their taste is then disagreeable, and they quickly become rotten.
To propagate the yucca the stalk is cut, particularly under the thick part, into span-long pieces, which are stuck obliquely into the earth. In five or six months the roots are fit for use, but they are usually allowed to remain some time longer in the earth. The stalks are sometimes cut off, and the roots left in the earth. They then put forth new leaves and flowers, and after sixteen or eighteen months they become slightly woody. The Indians in the Montaña de Vitoc sent as a present to their officiating priest a yucca, which weighed thirty pounds, but yet was very tender. On the western declivity of the Cordillera, the boundary elevation for the growth of the yucca is about 3000 feet above the level of the sea.
Among the pulse there are different kinds of peas (_garbanzos_) on the coast; beans (_frijoles_), on the contrary, occupy the hilly grounds. All vegetables of the cabbage and salad kinds cultivated in Europe will grow in Peru. The climate, both of the coast and the hills, suits them perfectly; but the hot, damp temperature of the eastern declivity of the Andes is adverse to them. Numerous varieties of the genus _Cucurbita_ are cultivated in the _chacras_, or Indian villages, on the coast. They are chiefly consumed by the colored population. I did not find them very agreeable to the taste. They are all sweetish and fibrous.
Among the edible plants which serve for seasoning or spicery, I must mention the love-apple (_Tomate_), which thrives well in all the warm districts of Peru; and the Spanish pepper (_Aji_), which is found only on the coast and in the mild woody regions. There are many species of the pepper (_Capsicum annuum, baccatum, frutescens, &c._), which are sometimes eaten green, and sometimes dried and pounded. In Peru the consumption of aji is greater than that of salt; for with two-thirds of the dishes brought to table, more of the former than of the latter is used. It is worthy of remark that salt diminishes, in a very striking degree, the pungency of the aji; and it is still more remarkable that the use of the latter, which in a manner may be called a superfluity, has no injurious effect on the digestive organs. If two pods of aji, steeped in warm vinegar, are laid as a sinapism on the skin, in the space of a quarter of an hour the part becomes red, and the pain intolerable; within an hour the scarf-skin will be removed. Yet I have frequently eaten twelve or fifteen of these pods without experiencing the least injurious effect. However, before I accustomed myself to this luxury, it used to affect me with slight symptoms of gastritis. On the eastern declivity of the Cordilleras I found no capsicum at a greater height than 4800 feet above the level of the sea.