The major food crop in Peru is potatoes. Many people eat them in some form at every meal. Most people in North American and Europe are use to seeing only four or five types of potatoes at the market. The potato is indigenous to South America and it was the Spanish who introduced it to Europeans. Maize, or corn, is also a very popular food.
Corn is dried on the husk then stored until it is needed.
The dried kernels can be removed and crushed into meal which can be made into porridge. The Incas mixed water with the corn, fermented it, and poured off the liquid as a type of beer. Hundreds of years later maize beer, or chicha, is still a popular drink. Mate de coca is a traditional tea brewed with coca leaf leaves. It is just as common to be served at cup of hot water with a bunch of big leaves floating in the top as it is to be served a tea bag.