Twenty six pounds of olives, 33 pounds of eggs, 1100 pounds of avocado and a few other ingredients will combine Monday to create a giant salad for the XV National Avocado Festival. The salad is expected to feed the 4,000 attendees in the Luricocha district of the Ayacuchan province of Huanta.
Fifty women will prepare the salad today in the town's main square. Once prepared the salad will be displayed in a fountain so that visiting tourists can admire and consume the salad. Tomorrow the town celebrates the Festival of the Cross. Visitors can try typical fruits during a fair and visit other attractions during the festival.
The mayor of Luricocha, Edgar Sánchez Cruz, remembers the first festival the city held in 1996. He says the salad that year was prepared with the world's largest avocado, which was entered in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Sánchez Cruz also says that Luricocha is the largest producer of avocados at the national level and has 23 varieties. The avocados from the region are exported to Spain, France, Canada, United States, Chile, Germany, Panama and Argentina.
