Culinary Delights

We were warned that Chilean food was not terribly exciting and we found this to be quite accurate. The main spices used appear to be salt, sugar, and mayonaise. Mayonaise sometimes even makes an appearance at breakfast!

A basic breakfast was some sort of bread (often pan hallulla) with butter and extremely sweet jam. This was served with instant coffee or tea (milk was seldom available for tea). In the more generous establishments, typical additions were yoghurt and sometimes cereal. The most substantial breakfast we had was at Hostal de la Avenida in Punta Arenas. Here, breakfast included crepes filled with dulce de leche, scrambled eggs, yoghurt, cereal, and freshly squeezed juice (clementine or mandarine, I think, it was too sweet to be orange juice). We were given incredulous looks when we asked for the dulce de leche to be left out on the second morning. I had mine plain but Joe was carrying around a jar of Nutella and used that on his.

For lunch we typically bought stuff for sandwiches at grocery stores. We did sample what seems to be the national dish or rather topping: italianos. This topping is meant to look like the italian flag and consists of avocado, tomatoes, and mayonaise. It is much better than it sounds! We had this first in Santiago, where a friend brought us to Fuente Alemana. This is a sandwich counter place with the cooks and waitresses corralled in the center of the rectangular counter taking and making orders at a ridiculously fast pace. We ordered lomitos italiano, lomito meaning pork and italiano meaning the topping. It was really huge and decadent! The italiano topping is available everywhere both from street vendors and in restaurants on hotdogs and we quite enjoyed the hotdog version, too.

Dinner fare was usually some sort of meat or fish with fries. In some places, rice or mashed potatoes was an option but this was not terribly frequent. Vegetables were rare although salads could be ordered separately. We found this a little odd since the vegetables in the markets and supermarkets in Chile were exceptional. Our dehydrated camping meals tended to be better than our restaurant meals but that is probably a matter of taste. By the end of the trip, we were really missing our veggies.

Although we're not vegetarian, we do not tend to eat a lot of meat at home. Vegetarian meals were difficult to find until we got to San Pedro de Atacama, where it seems a fair number of places cater to the vegetarian and hip crowd. We stopped in at one place for lunch that makes its own juice and ice cream. Here, I had the set lunch which included a dessert square with a side of frozen chunky apple sauce with cinnamon that was quite delicious. Joe had home made ice cream with two local flavours although the names of these escape us now.

Things we missed:

• fresh milk - It is all UHT.
• 100% fruit juice without sugar added
• vegetables with dinner

Things we thought were particularly good:

• italianos
• the fish and seafood

Things we thought were odd:

• italianos
• an entire aisle in the supermarket dedicated to mayonaise
• Mote con huesillo - a very sweet drink consisting of iced sugar water with a rehydating peach and barley

A sandwich spot in Santiago. We didn't eat here but I liked the name. Lomo means pork tenderloin.