La comida chilena

Today's post will be about the food of chile!

First things first, LA PALTA. Avocados are in everything. Many mornings, I simply have palta with bread. Which brings me to the second thing which actually should be the first thing:

PANCITO: bread, bread, bread. I eat it many times per day. The two most popular breads are marraqueta, which is like really good french bread and as you can see normally you break it into four sections, and ayuya, sandwichs and breakfast are usually where this one appears most, pictured below:

During my first week in Chile during orientation, we were given some advice by a Chilean: watch out for the pan! She told us a story of how she met two girls at the beginning of the program and then a few months later she ran into them and barely recognized them because they had inflated from all the bread. (!!) Plus, Chilean mom are famous for overfeeding you. Indeed, I have mentioned on here that my mom has literally placed food in my mouth before!

Next we have COMPLETOS, the chilean version of a hot dog. We have been doing hot dogs wrong for years, people! ketchup mustard and relish does NOT cut it in Chile. Avocado, tomatoes, mayonaise, this really good sauce that i dont know the name of, this other good sauce, THEN the ketchup and mustard. Soooo gooood. They also have less toppings options, one of them called the ITALIANO named for the italian flag look you get with the ingredients of ketchup, palta and mayonaise. In this category I would like to add CHURRASCOS which are essentially meat sandwhichs with the same toppings that completos have. mmmm!

I usually dont put quite so much mayonaise on, if any. I dont like mayonaise which is a shock to chileans who put it on EVERYTHING: broccoli, rice, you name it.

MANJAR: I am bringing back at least 5 bags of this stuff. [Sidenote: all condiments here come in bags instead of jars/bottles, examples: ketchup, mustard, mayonaise, marmelade, etc weird!!] It is essentially dulce de leche, basically really sweet delicious stuff. You can put it on bread for a nice snack, they have manjar cakes, manjar everything. One chilean saying i like is: "más lento que una cascada de manjar" Slower than a manjar waterfall, it pretty much has the consistency of peanut butter but smoother if that helps..caramel maybe? yes.

ALFAJORES/MEDIALUNAS: These are the chilean version of british tea and crumpets. They are little cakiesnackie thingys. Alfajores are cookies with manjar layers and then covered in chocolate, and medialunas little mini croissant like things bathed in sweet syrupy goodness. Chileans love their dulces.

NESCAFE: soooo no real coffee hardly exists in Chile, which is surprising it being in s. america and all, instead the brand Nescafe has taken a monopoly in this country. It is coffee powder. You put spoonfuls of nescafe into boiling water, apparently it is gross. I dont like coffee either way so this has not been a huge disappointment for me. hahaaa Tea is also quite popular here, to my great delight!

I think I have covered the basics, I hope you all enjoyed this little "taste" of chile wahahaha :p