Acknowledgments

On March 15, 2022, Bernardo Roca Rey passed away, a giant of Peruvian cuisine, a maker and a visionary, a creative, impassioned man who set the bar incredibly high and leaves behind an immense legacy.

“The palate’s memory is more powerful than the ear’s.” That’s what the great Bernardo Roca Rey used to say, the tireless dreamer and creative who passed away at the age of 77, leaving behind a wide-ranging legacy encompassing every field he explored with his inexhaustible curiosity.

Bernardo was an amiable, restless, generous man, enamored of Peru and its exquisite cuisine, which he researched and championed in an effort to help it shine.

He obtained his bachelor’s degree from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Seville and studied journalism with his grandfather, Luis Miró Quesada, from the age of 13 or 14. The founder of Somos magazine, the television station Canal N, and the daily papers Trome and Perú21, he started to lay the foundations back in the 1980s of what would later become the Peruvian culinary revolution. At that time, no one could have guessed what the future held. He was far ahead of his time.

Bernardo was driven by a desire to reexamine native ingredients and apply modern techniques to their preparation, always paying careful attention to the aesthetic aspects of cooking. And that was how cocina novoandina, or New Andean cuisine, was born, created, according to Bernardo, to convince Peruvians that contemporary cuisine had something to say in our traditional Criollo dishes. In this task, he worked side by side with the great Cucho La Rosa.

This giant figure made the Mistura festival into the image of a country of many flavors. He published notable books such as 500 Years of Fusion, which won Best Cookbook at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, and he worked fervently on behalf of culinary culture in Peru to help it reach the international stage.
In 2010, he was appointed the first Vice Minister of Cultural Heritage and Cultural Industries. At that time, he submitted a petition to the UNESCO proposing that Peruvian cuisine be named Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Bernardo fought to the end for his dreams, the dreams of a better Peru.

We will miss you, Bernardo.