La comida es rica!

So much of every culture revolves around its food.  I shared in previous posts the freshness,

variety and excellent prices of fruits and vegetables available at local ferias (outdoor produce markets) and we shop there at least once a week, often twice.  All the Chileans use small carts to carry their purchases in.  After a few times struggling with our backpacks we smartened up and got our own matching polka-dot feria carts!

The produce is great but the experience adds so much more.  Vendors line the street on both sides.  Some haphazardly pile their produce for display.  Others carefully and artfully stack and arrange them.  Some quietly tend their stands and serve their customers.  Others holler incessantly their advertisements and inducements.  There's never a lack of dogs.  Unfortunately, they feel the need to mark their territory, sometimes on stacks of produce to be sold.  Always wash your purchases carefully!  If you get to the feria at 10:30am there's a crush of people and it takes forever to work your way through the crowd.  At 9:00am there are fewer customers to compete with but many vendors are still setting up.  Price signs are frequently not yet posted so you have to ask.  Most vendors are honest.  Some not so much.  You can almost see the thoughts racing through their minds and the resulting hesitation, something like: aha - rich gringo!, my advantage, how much can I reasonably raise the price, mental addition, resulting final inflated price.  And then they answer.  This week I went to purchase cherry tomatoes that were posted last week at 1000 pesos a kilo.  He quoted me 1500 this time.  He didn't make the sale.  After such experiences, shopping at supermarkets seems so stale now!

We have found that Chilean food tends to be more bland than we're used to.  Not that it doesn't

taste good.  There are just fewer sharper and contrasting flavors, fewer seasonings.  One thing is for sure.  The Chilean tongue generally can't handle hot and spicy.  And this observation comes from two people who consider themselves weak in that category.  Case in point.  At a ward cookout we were given a longaniza (sausage) in a bun.  A sister mixed some merkén (a smoked hot red pepper powder which originated here with the Chilean indigenous people) into mayonnaise for a condiment.  Teresa enjoyed the small sample she tried and proceeded to slather a thick layer over the length of the longaniza, to the warnings and protests of everyone there.  They claimed it would be too spicy hot.  Undaunted she enjoyed bite after bite to the surprise of everyone.  I found the merkén to be spicy but not overbearing, adding a nice little kick.  We don't have a picture of Teresa's great feat but we do have one of Obispo Miranda manning the cooker.  Note the longaniza next to the pork.

One of our favorite Chilean "fast foods" is the empanada.  (Yes, you can get McDonalds or a variety of other American fast foods but we even avoid those back home.  Plus they're expensive.)  Apparently empanadas are common in many South American countries so they shouldn't be considered Chilean food per se, but they're made here so we'll count it.  My first was a Napolitana and so far it's my favorite.  It was recommended by Elder Rodriguez who took this picture (we'll see him in another picture next).  Elder Vera is between Teresa and me and he seems to be enjoying his empanada, too.


Elder Rodriguez hails from Asuncion, Paraguay where our daughter Jessica served her mission

(but they never met).  Turns out he was a chef back home too, loves to cook, and asked if he could prepare Christmas dinner for us.  Of course!  He wanted to make one of his favorite dishes called Milanesa, which by its very name suggests it originated in Milan, Italy.  It's a type of fried breaded chicken that tastes wonderful.  We picked up the ingredients and he took it from there, commandeering the kitchen as Teresa observed and learned (she wants to bring the best recipes back home with us).  He even donned Teresa's apron - pretty cute!  Teresa rounded out the meal with mashed potatoes, asparagus, carrots, and rolls.

That day we had over for dinner Elders Rodriguez and Vera and the other companionship living in their apartment, Elders Fowles and Anderson, as well as the Hendricks, the senior couple working in the mission office.  Sister Hendricks brought a delicious chocolate cake which we have enjoyed again since and hope to enjoy many more times yet.

We met a very vivacious sister, Hermana Pilar, who loves to feed the missionaries.  We were

Hna Pilar is standing and Elder Calixto is between her and Teresa.

lucky enough to be invited, along with four young elders, to her home for lunch the first of the year.   She is such an energetic woman, bouncing all over, beaming with smiles and speaking more quickly than I can usually understand.  This was the first time we had been invited to eat at a member's home and we thought we would be able to experience home cooked Chilean food but such was not the case.  Elder Calixto, previously a chef, cooked aji de gallina, a Peruvian dish which means "spicy hen" (although it's not spicy at all).  It's a chicken based sauce made with palillo (similar to tumeric) that is served over sliced potatoes with a hard boiled egg on top and rice on the side. It was delicious!  He also made two types of juice, one of strawberries and the other of a white fruit I'm not familiar with.  Both were very tasty!

Our neighbor Nora cooks and sells dishes out of her house.  She made us pastel de choclo, another dish common to many countries.  It is prepared with sweet corn, which is ground to form a paste, and seasoned with basil, itself ground and then blended into the corn.  The mixture is pre-cooked with milk and a little lard and then, when ready, it is used as a topping for the filling.  The filling usually contains ground beef, chicken, raisins, black olives, onions or slices of hard boiled egg.  It's quite good but because of the milk Teresa can't have it.  She hopes to get the recipe and then try substituting a different ingredient for the milk.

If you can believe it we've only been to two Chilean restaurants in our four months here.  Excuses range from busy schedules to language barriers (I know, very lame).  For me, Teresa is such a

great cook I prefer her food to nearly every restaurant we've been to anyway (and I'm such a good sous-chef she gets lots of help in the kitchen!).

Anyway, we spent one P-day climbing around Cerro Santa Lucía in downtown Santiago, a hill with historical significance and a nice view of the city.  Afterwards we stopped at a street side restaurant for a bite.  The waitress was very helpful and sweet and when we struggled to understand what a specific menu item was she summoned her English-speaking boyfriend/co-owner/cook to help us out.  We had a delightful meal on that sidewalk chatting with the waitress and her boyfriend, watching busy people walk by, taking in the sites and sounds and everything Chilean.  It's true, the food turned out to be bland as expected.  But the people, the people are warm and sweet and welcoming.  We love them and we're so happy to be here with them.

I hope you enjoyed our little culinary tour.  It's probably a bit premature since there is so much more we haven't experienced yet, from the varieties and delicacies to be found in the multitude of local restaurants and cafes to the simple aromas, textures, sights and sounds familiar in the kitchens of common Chilean families.  I love this part of being a missionary too.  Heavenly Father has created a world of such variety and diversity.  We just need to jump in and enjoy - more adventures await!