Chilean cuisine experience

First about the steaks. They look just incredible, they smell so good when you are grilling them, but you have to be lucky to get a tasty one. In Saint Petersburg, there are not steaks like this at all, but we have been lucky on small markets and sometimes managed to get awesome meet. Here it happens more often, but still not guaranteed. Up to this point, Argentinian meat has been the best, which is actually not a surprise.

What about seafood? Unlike people of the Dominican Republic, Chileans accept the ocean’s gifts gratefully and cook them regularly, and for us it’s a good reason to show our respect to them. You can find fresh seafood in any market, you just have to stay in the city closed to the coast and come to the market in the morning. Of course, we never did this, because we are too lazy to get up early… so we simply went to the market in Santiago and had a seafood lunch there.

Chilean people really love seafood and know how to cook it.

They also have a national soup called Paila Marina. First, we tasted its restaurant version, and after that the real one, in a cauldron on coals, with wine, a guitar and “it is full of love!”, as Balter said and I believe him. In a cauldron were a lot of mollusks, meat, garlic and carrots (they are fried in meat fat), white wine, potatoes, and even sausages for some reason, damn it! This is awesomely delicious. These mollusks, by the way, are knocking in their shells, while they are waiting for their fate, and if you pour beer into the bowl (no, no, I didn’t do that, really!), they close immediately. It is pity them, of course, but they are just soooo tasty! Cannot wait to make Paila Marina once again!

There is also a traditional dish of the Chiloe archipelago. It is called Curanto Chilote. They cook it in a pit on hot stones, shifting numerous ingredients with huge burdocks, which seem to grow only here. Ingredients – mollusks, meat, beans, potatoes, potato pancakes, and even some sausages – again. Very delicious!

We have been to a Chinese restaurant in Iquique. And what we said? From Chinese cuisine, there are only these huge portions, just like in St. Petersburg, but the taste was a problem: it was just normally cooked homemade food. Chinese sauces and spices? No! A couple of days after that, our host had a guest who came with Chinese food from the restaurant. They asked us if we want to taste some and well, what we found there? Pancakes with cabbage! And this is Chinese food, what? 😀

I have to tell about sugar as well. It is very common to use sweeteners here instead of normal sugar, so you have to be careful when buying lemonade and even yogurt: take a look at the calories. One day I was very hungry and bought the first yogurt I saw, and it was almost zero-calories so it didn’t work at all. Chileans tend to be overweight, and this, unfortunately, is obvious. I believe that if they ate less their tasty bread such as marraceta and pan amasado, meat pies called empanadas, and potato chips, they could use normal sugar and not get fat. But it is their choice.

Avocados, which are locally called palta, are used everywhere, and usually with a lot of lemon juice. And yes, I’m still eating them with huge pleasure and I cannot imagine my life without palta anymore! 🙂

It is not possible to find lighter fluid for bbq. People use newspapers and whatever, but not this handy liquid. We have checked this from locals for eight times and no, they never use it. However, without it, it’s even better. Instead of lighter fluid – a bit of news from the newspapers and a bit of tenderness, and everything will turn out!

The last for today is water. In the north, it is disgusting, totally mineralized and nasty both in taste and in appearance. Moving slowly to the south, it becomes a little better, and I hope that somewhere very far, in Punta Arenas, people drink cold tap water, where it comes from the mountains. I really want to believe in it!