Lima - If someone or anything is out of its place in Peru, people use to say he or she ''is as lost as fried egg in a ceviche'' and that is just a sample of the presence of food in the Peruvian popular language, in a country with a vast and intense cuisine.

This Peruvian peculiarity surprises more than 1,000 foreign reporters who have come to Peru to cover the Pan American Games Lima 2019, and the reporters alternate their job with incursions into the Peruvian cuisine, listening to expressions such as the one aforementioned.

If someone wants to ask anyone else abaout his problem, he or she may mention a popular gumbo, a creation from African slaves living in Peru, made by mixing potatoes with some pieces of meat.

Even in sports, a piece of bread with fish is used to describe when two players jump at the same time on a rival to dispute the ball and, almost literally, they squash him, which is an infraction.

'To throw some rice' to someone or soemthing means it is equal to reject or to scorn him, and to 'throw camote (sweet potato, in other lands) to a lot of affection. This way, it may also mean to fall in love.

A confused situation is a sort of 'mango and rice', spaguetti it means size, stature, 'lenteja' means late or slow, and a choro (the shellfish mussel) means he/she is a thief.

'Huevear', is applied equally to do nothing at all and to deceive, to mislead or to make a joke of somebody. And a 'huevada' is a foolish remark or anything that it is not worthwhile. The fruits also motivate countless expressions: 'papaya' is easy or simple; 'coco' nominates the dollar; 'palta' is preoccupation, fear or anguish; 'naranjas' means no or nothing.

And a person or ambiguous or undefined situation is known as 'ni chicha ni limonada'.