Chilean Food Favorites

I've posted about food quite a bit already. If you've stuck with me this long, you either really like food, too, or you really like me, and you're tolerating my repetitive food posts. Either way, thank you!

Chile has a couple of special foods that I'd like to talk about.

The first is manjar. Manjar (pronounced mon-har for all you gringos out there in Gringolandia) is a South American staple. Perú has manjar, too, and I've been told that Argentina does as well. Manjar is awesome. It's a lot like a caramel, but has a deeper flavor, and is a little darker than US caramel. US caramel is often golden in color. Manjar is a bit darker, almost a coppery color. It is incredible.

We've had manjar a couple of ways. Manjar is often sold in liquid form in little plastic tubes. Matt put it on pancakes once for a decadent breakfast!

I'm a bigger fan, though, or manjar coco. That's a semi-soft ball of manjar rolled in very finely shredded coconut. They are very, very good!

Manjar is also the key ingredient in an alfajor. Alfajores are sandwich style cookies. Two soft, fragile cookies are bound together with a big dollop of manjar, and usually dusted with powdered sugar. I have a special diet, and I am not able to eat alfajores, but I remember them Perú, and they are absolutely divine. They are so, so, so good. The best way to get them (and probably the most common way, as well) is to buy them fresh from a bakery. Even little corner grocery stores here have bakeries, so it's not hard to find fresh ones. There are pacakged versions, too, though.

I couldn't snag a picture from the bakery, so I took a picture of the packaged ones.

These are freshly-baked brazos de reina (queen's arms). They are cakes rolled with fillings, in this case, with manjar.

The next Chilean product to talk about is merquén (sometimes spelled merkén). Merquén is a spice. It's very smoky and savory, and it comes in roughly ground form. It's Matt's favorite. He puts it on everything. He loves it on pizza, adds it to salads, and even sprinkles it on risotto! It's not too spicy (nothing in Chile is too spicy), but it adds a nice depth of flavor.

I'm definitely taking some back with me to the US for my friends who like to cook. You can find all kinds of merquén flavored products here, like merquén potato chips and merquén roasted peanuts. I like to roast chickpeas for a healthy protein-filled snack... I think I'll coat some in merquén and garlic for Matt!

Here is merquén in sauce form.

And again

I am also really enjoying fruit here. To be fair, I enjoy fruit everywhere. Who doesn't? Although Matt and I usually buy and eat more apples, oranges, and bananas than any other fruits, the "favorites" in Chile are: chirimoya, mango, lúcuma, tuna, and pepino.

Chirimoya is native to the Andes, making a super Chilean food. To me, it almost looks like a more solidly formed artichoke than a fruit. The center, though, is white and creamy with big, black seeds that are easy to remove. Some people chill the chirimoya and eat it with a spoon, like ice cream, but I've mostly had it in freshly-pressed juices. It's very smooth and very tasty, and tastes tropical.

I couldn't find a fresh chirimoya in the store, so I borrowed this picture I found online.

Mangoes are no stranger to the US; most grocery stores carry them during certain seasons. They're very, very popular in Chile, though. Mangoes are notoriously hard to slice, so I usualy get them, like the chirimoya, in fresh juice form. Matt loves mango, too. Sometimes we buy mango ice pop bars for a refreshing dessert.

Me with a mango-chirimoya juice, and Elly with another beverage.

Another popular fruit is lúcuma. Lúcuma is a Peruvian fruit, but is also known to grow in Vietnam. Perú exports lots of lúcuma to Chile. Lúcuma has a rich, almost butterscotch-y flavor. Matt really enjoys majar-lúcuma products, like manjar-lúcuma yogurt and manjar-lúcuma ice pops. I'm not the biggest fan of this fruit, but Matt really likes it, and it certainly makes itself known in Chilean cuisine.

Lúcuma almost looks like an avocado.

Manjar-lúcuma ice pops.

Another fruit we see a lot is tuna. (No, not the fish!) Here, tuna refers to a type of fruit. Once peeled, it looks like a kiwi but with big, soft, edible seeds.

And, the last fruit I want to talk about, which really intrigues me, is the pepino. Pepino refers to two things in Spanish, a cucumber and a fruit. The fruit version is smooth, and has a teardrop shape. It tastes like a mild, cucumber-apple combination. It's very refreshing!

This last one is a strange one... mote con huesillos. Mote con huesillos is a wheat-and-peach drink. People take dried peaches (huesillos), and stew them with sugar (or honey), water, and cinnamon. Then, they cool the liquid, and add freshly cooked and husked wheat (mote). It's supposed to be very refreshing in the hot summer months. Many vendors take to the streets to sell fresh glasses of it. You can also find it in the grocery store. I can't have it because of the wheat ingredients, but I will take everyone's word for it that it is delicious.

The huesillos (dehydrated peaches)

The mote (wheat)

A big stand of mote and huesillos. The Chilean independence holidays are coming up, and this grocery store knows how to market Chile's national drink!

The finished product: most people prefer to make it fresh, but they do have it prepared in stores.

Eucalyptus gummies are also quite popular. Sometimes bus drivers allow vendors to come onto the bus to sell items, and there are often vendors who sell these gummies. I love the smell of eucalyptus - it's so refreshing. The gummies smell and taste like chewy cough drops (which isn't an admonition; I like cough drops!).

In Chile, you'll also see some familiar foods in a new light. For example, I love baby corn. When my brother and I were growing up, I remember my dad would have to count out the baby corn that came in our Chinese food so that my brother and I had an equal number. We liked it so much we would complain that one got more than the other! In the US, baby corn can be expensive, and not every grocery store carries it. In Chile, I've seen it at every grocery store. It's marketed for use in green salads as well as stir-fries.

Lentils are also very popular in Chile. In the US, when I go to the dried goods section of a grocery store, you might find one or two types and sizes of lentils. I never had them much growing up, and I can't think of a single time I saw them on a restaurant menu. It's a shame they're not more popular in the US, because lentils are packed with protein (one serving of lentils contains more protein than a serving of steak). I remember the very first meal I had in Chile was a big bowl of stewed lentils, and they were delicious.

Those are all different varieties of lentils!

Another popular item in Chile is sparkling water. I've never been a fan of sparkling water (which is just carbonated water), but Matt loves it. He gets it all the time. Every convenience store and grocery store carries it, and in the same quantity as normal bottled water.

One more thing: if you come to Chile (or lots of countries outside the US), you'll notice that eggs are not refrigerated at the grocery store. The reason the US refrigerates eggs is because of the way we farm them. The US agricultural business likes to produce lots of chicken and lots of eggs really fast. In order to do that, chemicals and antiobiotics are used, which make it unsafe for us to leave our eggs unrefrigerated. Other countries don't have those chemical issues, so the eggs are fine to leave out at the store. Once people bring their eggs home, most store them in the fridge anyway, but at the market, you'll rarely see them refrigerated.

A wall of unrefrigerated eggs.

Indulge me in some general food photos, as I love them.

Freshly-made desserts at the grocery store's bakery. There's mango, lúcuma, and manjar to be found in those tubs!

Beautiful ice creams and gelatos at a nearby shop.

Hungry yet? I miss you all! Hope you're enjoying some food back in the states!