America’s current love affair with the cuisine of Spain, as well as the extensive Latin American pantry, is being explored in depth this month and next at Copia.

As we learn that the Peruvian kitchen could become the new hot food trend in this country, Jacquelyn Buchanan, Copia’s director of culinary programs, is enchanting local foodies and visitors with cooking ingredients, menus and techniques popular in Mexico and Latin America.

This month’s Taste of Copia Lunch is titled “South American Sensations,” and has Buchanan teaming up with Associate Director of Wine Burke Owens and Director of Gardens Colby Eierman for the midday food and wine pairing.

Buchanan has put together the menu for the series of Friday lunches, as Owens pairs South American grape varieties with the tasty three-course lunch. Eierman is on hand to talk about ingredients harvested from Copia’s gardens and to inform attendees how they, too, can grow all manner of produce and herbs favored by the Latin palate.

The menu for this month’s Friday lunches consists of steamed clams in the style of a Colombian seafood stew, prepared with sour orange juice, coconut milk and dried ancho chiles, along with a main course of flank steak (prepared from beef raised in Uruguay) drizzled with chimichurri, an Argentinean salsa made with parsley, garlic, chipotle and vinegar. Accompanying the tender, flavorful steak is a staple of the Peruvian cuisine, potatoes with peppered cheese sauce, or what the Peruvians call papas a la Huancaina.

A special dessert treat is dulce de leche flourless chocolate cake served with dulce de leche ice cream.

Buchanan provides the Friday lunch bunch with preparation methods and tips, putting in a plug as well for Estancia free range, grass-fed beef from Uruguay, which she maintains has much better flavor than the corn-fed option. Estancia beef is carried by Napa’s Browns Valley Market and offered on the menu at Meadowood Resort.

Techniques offered to Copia visitors include surefire tips for removing sand from clams, how best to prepare flank steak medium rare and how to shop for and make use of a wide variety of chiles.

Buchanan said she could not find a local source for the traditional Peruvian chile, aji amarillo, for making the salsa served with the potatoes. She substituted cayenne and noted that other Mexican chiles could be tried as well. Cooks intent on using aji amarillo can find the fresh Peruvian chiles at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market during late summer months, as well as in a variety of forms — from fresh to frozen — at the Latin market located at 24th and Mission streets in San Francisco.

Owens offered a trio of exceptional wines for the lunch, including a pair of inexpensive bottlings — an Argentinean torrontes and a Chilean carmenere, both retailing for $9.95 — along with a smooth, round fruity Argentinean malbec, which proved a perfect match for the steak dish. It retails for $29.95, and all three wines can be found in Copia’s retail shop, Cornucopia.

The South American Sensations lunch is offered for $45 at 1 p.m. on Jan. 19 and 26.

Or home cooks can try their hand at preparing these dishes, as Copia provided recipes for all dishes served at the Friday lunches.

More Latin attractions

In addition to the Friday lunch program, Copia has a daily offering this month — the Latin Pantry: Making Mexican Food at Home.

Buchanan is teaming up with Marguerita Duran, another veteran from the Copia culinary team, to provide Copia-goers with tips on how to prepare everything from roasted tomatillo salsa to nopales (prickly pear cactus) salad.

There’s a daily demonstration of one dish as well as tips of all kinds. For example, Duran informed a recent class that cilantro will keep longer if you put it in a jar, covered with a plastic bag, and place the jar in the refrigerator. It will last for up to a month, she said.

Duran also advised that most ingredients featured in many of the Latin American preparations this month can be found in Napa at La Morenita Market, 2436 Jefferson St., and Latino Market, 2993 Jefferson St.

Exotic Latin Fruits and Veggies, a cooking demonstration with lunch and paired wines, is scheduled at Copia on Sunday at a cost of $35. Baja: Cooking on the Edge, another cooking demo with wine-paired lunch, is set for Saturday, Jan. 27, also for $35. And new at Copia this year is the Taste of Copia brunch, the first one scheduled on Jan. 28 at 11 a.m. at a cost of $45, with Mexican-accented dishes on the menu.

Wine, Cuisine and the Art of Mexico, featuring a walkaround wine tasting, is scheduled at noon on Jan. 27, with general admission at $25.

Come March, Copia will explore the cuisine and wines of Spain.