Meat that has been salted and dried, similar to jerky, traditionally made in South America, especially Argentina and Uruguay.
From Spanish charque, which comes from Quechua ch'arqui, the language of the Andes. The Quechua people developed this preservation method centuries before Spanish contact. The word traveled to English via Spanish colonial texts and later trade.
Charque is where the word 'jerky' ultimately comes from—when English speakers heard Spanish traders say 'charque,' they adapted it to 'jerked beef,' creating one of the world's most enduring preserved meat traditions! It's a word that proves the Quechua innovation was so useful it crossed languages and continents.
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