Suspiro a la limeña

Suspiro a la limeña is a spoon dessert in two parts. At the bottom is a manjar blanco, a thick cream of milk and sugar slowly cooked and enriched with egg yolks. On top is a firm meringue made from egg whites and a sugar syrup cooked with Port wine, sprinkled with cinnamon. It is usually served in small cups or dessert glasses because it is very sweet.

Both elements arrived with the Spaniards. The manjar blanco is heir to a cream from medieval European cuisine, and the meringue was already known in Spain as suspiro. In Lima, the two joined in criolla confectionery, and the dessert has been identified as limeño since the 19th century. A 1868 cooking dictionary describes a similar preparation under the name manjar real del Perú.

The most repeated story about the name involves the cook Amparo Ayarza and her husband, the poet José Gálvez Barrenechea, who supposedly compared the dessert to the soft sigh of a woman. The dates do not match an origin in the 19th century, since Gálvez was born in 1885: the version is tradition, not a documented fact.

The dessert is one of the symbols of Lima’s confectionery and appears alongside turrón and picarones among the capital’s treats. Confectioneries in the city make versions with lúcuma, passion fruit and other fruits.