Acknowledgments

On December 4, 2021, the great Peruvian caterer Marisa Guiulfo passed away. At the age of 81, we lost a pillar of local cuisine and a role model for generations of cooks.

She used to reminisce about her origins with pride: As a little girl, Marisa Guiulfo would help her mother—who had a skilled touch in the kitchen—to cook meals at home, becoming young Marisa’s first great teacher. From then on, she always used a wooden spoon to taste test her exquisite dishes-in-the-making.

“In my heart, I’ve always had one single flag: Peru’s,” Marisa Guiulfo declared in 2019 upon receiving the Summum Award in recognition of her brilliant career. That night, she recalled her days in San Francisco fifty years ago when she would prepare ají de gallina for her gringo friends, who professed surprise at the dish’s “unsexy” appearance. She realized then that the path forward would require her to bring beauty to the table. And that’s just what she achieved. She infused everything she did with elegance, and she did so with the characteristic passion of a true devotee. “Dishes should be not only delicious, but tastefully presented. You need to keep colors in mind. I ‘paint’ my dishes, because everything starts with the eyes,” she once told the newspaper Perú21 in an interview in which she bluntly stated that she had worked like a mule to earn her success.

She started with “small meals for ten people, children’s celebrations, carting everything around in my VW Beetle.” She did it all through pure hard work and dedication. Tireless, bold, and exceptionally kind: that was Marisa, mother of four boys, three of whom now work in the culinary world.

Over her nearly five-decade culinary career, she stood out for including Peruvian dishes in great banquets and celebrations. Her purpose in life was to spoil her diners. Everywhere she went, she shone, freely sharing what she knew.

“If something good is happening in the culinary field, it’s because we all work without egos. We feel like one big family,” the founder of La Bonbonniere used to say, with the humility that made her so approachable. Now that she is gone, we are left with the incredible legacy of her life’s story, her recipes, and the dreams that she made a reality.