Cebiche dinner considered harmful

Question

I've been in Peru recently and enjoyed a lot of very good meals. Cebiches and tiraditos were among the best.

However, as it was a short business trip, luncheons were usually short and quick, so we tried with little luck to ask cebiche (or ceviche) for dinner.

We found out that Peruvians consider cebiche harmful at night, to the point that (most) cebicherías (restaurants serving only cebiche) are closed for dinner.

I tend to think that, being ceviche mainly raw seafood, this is just a myth coming from times when fridges were not available, but locals were very assertive about the inconveniences of eating raw seafood for dinner. They referred sleeping disorders, and the such.

So two questions:

1. Anybody knows if the Peruvian massive opinion is shared with other people on the Pacific Rim? Is it really a myth?
2. If the previous was affirmative ... Is it reasonable to store the day's catch outside a fridge (but in a shadowy and fresh place) to be eaten raw at dinner? (I like fishing, and I'm considering preparing cebiche with my catches).

PS: Look the size of those corn kernels!

Answer 1

In the South Pacific it's breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I could have Fijian Kokoda for every meal for a week, yuuuum!

Pacific style is with lime and coconut, it is still very acidic and fatty so not to everyone's taste

Could be specific fish types? But I have never had a problem

Once you add the lime juice to the fish it will keep longer without refrigeration

In Peru I suspect education is still lacking in food hygiene etc, so it may be a good move! (based on commentary from friends and relatives in Peru). Peru also has very traditions based cultures

Answer 2

If I read the wikipedia entry on this properly (which I looked-up to verify my hunch), it seems this is nominally equivalent to Japan's sushi/sashimi (sashimi being just the raw fish and sushi being the [generally] raw stuff inside rice and seaweed rolls).

If care is taken, I wouldn't see a reason why it couldn't be eaten later in the day. However, if you don't have a "good" place to store it, then I'd follow the local custom and skip it at the end of the day.

Answer 3

I was in Lima for two nights and ate ceviche both evenings - once at a local place owned, oddly enough, by Argentines (but the ceviche was prepared by a Peruvian cook), and once as one small course in the tasting menu at the very nice and very patriotically-Peruvian restaurtant Astrid y Gastón. Nothing bad happened to me either time, unless you count acquiring a lifetime craving for ceviche.