Chicha de jora

Chicha de jora is a special kind of drink that people in South America have been making for a really long time. It starts with a kind of corn that's called jora - this is a special kind of corn that's grown in the Andes mountains, which is the big, tall mountain range that runs through parts of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

When you want to make chicha de jora, you take some of this jora corn and you soak it in water for a few days. This makes the corn start to sprout, which is kind of like when you plant a seed in the ground and it starts to grow roots and shoots. Except in this case, we don't want the corn to grow too much - we just want it to start sprouting a little bit.

Next, you take the corn and you mash it up, kind of like how you might mash potatoes. This makes a kind of paste that's a bit like dough. Now, you add some more water to this paste, and leave it to ferment for a few days. Fermenting is a little bit like cooking, and it's how we make things like bread, cheese, and yogurt. When you ferment the corn paste, it starts to break down and release gases, which makes it turn into a kind of sweet, fizzy liquid.

And that's what chicha de jora is - a sweet, fizzy drink made from fermented jora corn. It's a really important drink in South American culture, and it's been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. People like to drink it during festivals and celebrations, and it's also sometimes used as a religious offering to the gods. Some people even say that chicha de jora has medicine-like properties, and can help with things like digestion or stomach problems.