People arrive expecting freeze-dried pouches and instant noodles. What they get on an organised trek in Peru is a cook who travels with the group and produces three hot meals a day, at altitude, from a tent.

It is one of the genuine surprises of trekking here, and it is worth knowing what to expect so you can plan around it.

A day of eating

Breakfast

You are woken with a hot drink at the tent, usually coca tea. Breakfast is bread, jam, eggs in some form, porridge or quinoa, fruit, and plenty of coffee and tea.

Eat more than you feel like. Appetite drops at altitude exactly when your body needs the fuel most, and the morning is when the hardest walking happens.

Lunch

On most itineraries lunch is a proper sit-down meal in a dining tent, not a sandwich on a rock. Soup first, then a main course with rice, potatoes, chicken or trout, and vegetables.

The soup matters more than it sounds: it is warm, salty and liquid, which is exactly what a body loses on a cold morning at 4,000 metres.

Afternoon tea

Arriving at camp, you get hot drinks, popcorn, biscuits or fried wontons. It is a small ritual and it is the moment most people remember fondly.

Dinner

Soup again, then a main course, then something sweet. On the last night many cooks produce a cake, baked in a pot over a camp stove, which is a trick worth seeing.

The food is more Peruvian than you expect

Quinoa soup, stuffed peppers, lomo saltado, trout from the valleys, aji de gallina. Potatoes in varieties you will not have met before.

It is adapted to be gentle on stomachs and easy to digest at altitude, so it is less spicy than what you would eat in Cusco, but it is recognisably Peruvian cooking rather than camp rations.

Dietary requirements

This is handled well, with one condition: tell your operator when you book, not on the morning of departure.

Vegetarian and vegan are entirely routine and the cooks are used to them. Gluten-free, lactose-free and allergies are manageable with notice.

Say it again at the briefing the night before. The message has to travel from the office to the cook, and repeating it costs nothing.

If you have a severe allergy, carry your own medication and do not rely on a kitchen tent at 4,000 metres to handle it.

Water and drinks

Boiled or treated water is provided and your bottle is refilled at every meal. Bring capacity for at least two litres.

Coca tea is constant. Alcohol is not provided and is a bad idea at altitude anyway, particularly on the first nights.

What to bring yourself

The meals are substantial, so you are not bringing food to survive. You are bringing it for the gaps.

Snacks for the walking hours: nuts, dried fruit, chocolate, cereal bars. Something sugary for the final push on a pass, which is when a body wants fast energy.

Rehydration salts, because they work better than plain water after a long day.

And if there is a specific comfort food you rely on, bring it. Four days in, familiar flavours are worth more than their weight.

About the cook and the crew

The person producing those meals is carrying the kitchen, setting up before you arrive and packing after you leave, at altitude, every day.

The cook and porters are tipped at the end of the trek, in cash and in soles. Ask your operator for the usual range before you leave Cusco, and bring the money with you: there is nowhere to withdraw it on the trail.