Peruvians “Go Crazy” on Panettone During Holiday Season

Daniel Salazar, Peru Country Manager, presents this list of the top three crazy things Peruvians do on Christmas. This is #2: Panettone on Christmas.

#2. Peruvians love their Panettone on Christmas:

For some reason Peruvians love to eat certain foods during particular times of the year or holidays. We will talk about that later. For now, all you need to know is that Peruvians love to eat panettone on Christmas. Just as with fireworks, during the holiday season markets and shops start displaying huge piles of panettone boxes, and they sell out pretty quickly.

What is panettone anyway?

Panettone is sweet cake/bread shaped like a cupula. It usually comes with raisins and dried fruit, and sometimes even chocolate pieces. Panettone was created in Milan, and so the story goes that Italian immigrants brought panettone to Peru. Peruvians suppose that Italians eat panettone for Christmas too, but I cannot assure that all Italians really do that. Read more about the origins of Panettone here.

What’s so crazy about panettone?

This a series about crazy stuff Peruvians do on Christmas. The reason behind the craziness is simple: fat and sugar. Panettone itself is very greasy and sugary. But then Peruvians love to also spread butter on their slice of panettone!

Experts say that eating a small piece of panettone the size of a roll equals to eating six rolls spread with butter and jelly.

As if that wasn’t enough, Peruvians usually accompany panettone with soda or hot chocolate. On top of that, they not only have one slice, but many. And that is not the only thing they eat, as panettone is considered a side dish, so you would normally have your whole meal as well as the panettone slices. For some reason Peruvians’ hunger and stomach expand exponentially on holiday season and they eat too much.

The grease and sugar overdose is so serious that public health organizations have started campaigns to warn about the danger of over-eating panettone on holiday season.

Everything is good with moderation

Still, panettone is really good. Most of my American friends who tried it for the first time loved it. Kids also love it, and so volunteers usually take panettone to the children’s home or the shanty town were we work at. We share panettone with hundreds of kids with huge smiles on their faces and provide a slice they would not otherwise have. If panettone was invented so that we could get a smile from them on the holiday season, it’s totally worth it.