Chilean food

I just wrote a friend about Chilean food and realized I haven't really written anything here....

I'm realizing it's a bit difficult for me to blog about life in Chile because, well, I'm boring!

No crazy adventures involving near death experiences with bug eating or elephant attacks.  Now I'm simply doing normal day to day stuff, making the bed, eating breakfast, going to school...blah, blah, blah.  

R man and I head out tomorrow for a month long vacation in the south of Chile with family and friends...all that stress of being on vacation for a year adds up and then you need a break!  Also, it's freaking hot in Santiago!  Like a Thailand summer, you stop going out during the day to avoid the extreme heat, plaster on sun screen when you do and wear a great big hat and light colored clothing....it's a lot of effort and no fun.  I'm looking forward to the cool rainy climate of the South Chilean Island of Chiloe for some crazy hiking in some rugged terrain near an ocean!  Grr...roar...after that, it's off to a cabin on a volcano near Puerto Montt, Bariloche in Argentina and some family time in Los Angeles, Temuco and Tome on our way back towards Santiago.

Who cares, FOOD!

So!  Here's some personal food insights I've noticed about Chile....purely generalities of course!  Prejudiced and biased, unfair probably...

Chileans tend to be uninventive cooks in general, but there's a lot of fresh produce, which makes up for it!  Why mess around, when the product is so perfect?  Spices and flavors aren't spectacular like they are in Thailand or India...Chileans don't like spicy, they like basic...kind of a Spanish variation of down home cookin'....barbecues and sandwiches...basic, that's where it's at!

MEAL:
MEAT
BREAD
SALAD


(the basic outline for a basic meal)


For a family barbecue gathering it's perhaps:


APPETIZER

• Pisco sours (a lemon-pisco appetizer drink)
• Longenizas (chorizo sausages with toasted bread toppd with  pebre (fresh tomato salsa)  and mayo!

MEAT!  (with a red wine)
BREAD
SALAD
DESSERT (with an espresso or a digestif )


Good - Simple - Delicious!


Produce:

The fruit is incredible!  Everything is in season right now!

Everything meaning:

peaches

watermelons that taste like pure sugar

cantaloupes

strawberries

plums

amazing avacadoes!!!  

tomatoes that smell and taste like tomatoes!!!  Really!

They are all incredible right now!!!!!
Chile has the perfect climate for produce, which makes for good and cheap veg and fruit eating!  Lucky sods!

La Vega Market in downtown Santiago

Beef is also really good here slowly grilled on a wood charcoal barbecue....they know where it's at with cooking meat on a grill!  It's what separates the boys from the men!  

In Santiago particularly, there are tons of restaurants called "fuente ....blah blah" that are known for their sandwiches.

My favorite sandwich type is called an Italiano (green: creamed avacado, white: giant slatherings of homemade mayonnaise, which I LOVE oh so much!, red: sliced tomato) all of this on a homemade giganto bun the size of an American salad plate that's been toasted with butter on a grill and then filled with thinly slized slow cooked beef that's been marinating in its juices, plus afore mentioned green, white and red....it's so big it's a meal and you eat it with a knife and fork!

Freaking awesome!  But will definitely kill you if you eat them everyday.

Chileans love to eat bread..a few variations of a white flat bun eaten every day for every meal!  It's a bit over kill for me....I eat a little and then I feel like I can't eat bread for a week, maybe a month...but it's delicious!

Cheese sucks.  Sorry Chile.  That's a problem for me, considering I studied in Wisconsin solely to meet a dairy farmer...and wound up with a Chilean cheese hater instead.  The only cheese they have is a type of Gouda with little holes in it...flavorless...colorless...almost tofu like....bleugh....but at least they have cheese, unlike Asia where I went into withdrawl!  This is probably good for me, since I gained 10 pounds in France on cheese alone.

Chile is getting pretty good with micro breweries now, so there are getting to be lots of good options for beer besides the PBR type varieties of the olden days (Chilean Crystal is the USA PBR)

Plus, the wine here...I'm getting a bit spoiled I think.  It's so good!!  But we all know this! 

It still freaks me out to see Cuban rum in the grocery aisle..what?  Cuban?  As I look around to see if the Feds are watching....

Lastly...desserts in Chile from a female mid western view point are weird!  They are ok, but I miss chewy giant cookies and cake in a box.  There is no such thing as soft and doughy.  I think dessert is viewed more as something that will wake your senses up (they're usually eaten with espresso) rather then lull you to sleep - at my house we'd get out the "sleepy time" tea with dessert at 9pm!  Here, 9pm is when dinner begins!

The favorite dessert generally involves:

• Manjar - Chilean Dulce de Leche (kind of a caramel like sweetened condensed milk)
• ultra sugary (too sugary for me) merengue
• lemon custard

These are pretty much your options in different variations.

Cake is not cake as we know it in the States, it's more like layers of flavorless crispy flat bread with manjar smothered all over it or in between layers....it's kind of just a cardboard base for manjar....

The other very popular option is lemon merengue pie, which is good, but I can only handle a spoonful from the extreme sweetness it has, like eating a spoonful of lemon flavored sugar, R man could eat an entire pie by himself!

I love Chilean food, but for people who enjoy lots of options and variations in their daily diet and don't like to cook, this is not the place for you.  After you overdose on meat and manjar, ur' dun!  There are plenty of fast food trend setting sushi restaurants popping up in Santiago with options like: cucumber and cream cheese rolls, or grilled chicken and avacado rolls...a Chilean version of Japanese food...similar I guess to the  California Roll...same same but different.

I could write an entirely separate blog just about oriental food in different countries!  If you think Kung Pao Chicken is the same everywhere, because it must be authentically Chinese...=)  Guess again!  I love trying Chinese and Indian food in lots of different countries!  Really fun stuff!


So that's my overview on Chilean cuisine.  Good.  Basic.  Makes you want to grunt and rub your belly.  
It makes me happy.  Good stuff!