Tinged with Incan influences as well as Spanish, Chinese, and Italian, Peruvian food reflects the Andean country’s multicultural past. It reflects the landscape too—mountains, coast, desert, and rain forest—and, because of this diversity, Peru is gaining recognition as the home of one of the world’s most important cuisines.

This comes as no surprise to a woman named Teresa Ocampo. A native of Cusco now in her 80s, Ocampo has spent her life making Peruvian food accessible to countless home cooks. She is a culinary icon in her country, so beloved that she is often referred to as “the Julia Child of Peru.”

Ocampo was born in 1931 and spent the early years of her childhood at the family’s hacienda, where her mother