Blue Backpack Break: Food

Hola todos,

The past week or so back in BA has been nice- I'm not living out of a tiny backpack, I sleep in my own bed rather than a random bed at a hostel, and I get to sit down at a dinner table and eat a home-cooked meal every night! However, the repetitive nature of my everyday life might just kill me- after being on the road for so long and experiencing so many new things so frequently, regular BA is almost boring! (I say almost because the city really is what you make it- so I'm going to make an effort to keep myself engaged!)
Additionally, school has started again, meaning that I have homework to procrastinate. So... I wrote this blog post instead! I really didn't have room to put all of the cool foods that I ate into my weekly entries over break, so here is a blog just for food that I ate over break. I hope you're hungry!

Chile

This drink is called mote con huesillos and is super popular in Chile. In Santiago, almost every street corner in the downtown peatonales (pedestrian-only streets) had a drink stand that was selling these. It is basically peach chunks with a bunch of peach juice poured over wheat grains. Even though it sounds ridiculous, it is surprisingly delicious!

This is a cono de pizza from Telepizza. Although not specifically cultural (as Telepizza can be found in several of the countries that I went to), it is an unusual food that I ate. It's basically a to-go pizza: the outside is the crust, and the inside has cheese, pepperoni, and tons of ham. A super good and cheap snack!

My first day in Valparaíso was so frantic that I just bought the only food item left at an empanada store across from my hostel. I have no idea what it is called, but I saw it several more times throughout the city. I think it is a modified empanada española. Basically, it is cooked empanada dough on the outside wrapping up a salchicha (hotdog/sausage) with cheese, tomato, and oregano. Basically, pigs-in-a-blanket was combined with pizza and then put in an empanada. It was good despite its questionable appearance.

Here we have pastel de choclo, which literally translates to corn cake, although the food is more like shepard's pie with corn instead of potatoes. Corn, ground beef, onions, a whole hard-boiled egg, and a single olive (with the pit) are inside this traditional Chilean dish. It is delicious!

This is another traditional Chilean dish that is particularly popular in Valparaíso: chorrillana. A huge pile of french fries are topped with deliciously cooked and seasoned strips of beef with onion, and a fried egg on top. It was incredible, but take heed: one order of this dish is certainly enough for two!

Me, anxiously anticipating eating the chorrillana! Myself and two other girls split one pastel de choclo and one chorrillana for lunch and we weren't hungry until dinnertime.

Hotdog stands were everywhere in Santiago- the two main kinds were italiano (hotdog with tomatoes, avocado, and mayonaisse) or completo (hotdog with tomatoes, relish, and mayo). Above is the italiano that I had (hold the mayo). It didn't taste any different than a US hotdog, but since the locals were eating these hotdogs by 10:30 am, I figured I should give it a shot!

Cazuela de carne: although cazuela means "casserole", in Chile it is more like soup. This one had cabbage and bread on the side, and an entire slice of beef, half of a potato, and a sweet potato in the soup.

Brazil

I bought this in the São Paolo airport. It's called an esfiha fechada do carne and I really don't know what that means, but I do know that it is not an empanada, because those were listed separately. However, it tastes exactly like an empanada filled with ground beef and onions.

This was just called a sagúiche salvado at the corner store I bought this in while in Rio. Not a very creative name (since it translates "salted/savory sandwich") but still an interesting and local mix of flavors. The soft croissant-like outside was wrapped around a mix of cheese, chopped-up hard-boiled egg, and what I think was shredded pork.

An acai bowl on Ipanema beach! In Brazil, the acai bowls are different from the ones that I have had in California and Arizona- instead of having an icy acai berry blend that is loaded with granola, honey, and fruits on top, these acai bowls (which are actually more like cups) have strawberry or banana (or sometimes both!) blended with the acai. Generally, you have to ask for granola and/or honey on top, and sometimes the granola is blended in with the fruit and berries.

This was my birthday dinner. I split it with another girl, but there was definitely enough food for three! This is a traditional Brazilian dish that included grilled chicken, rice, french fries, and farofa. Farofa, at least the way it was explained to us, is scrambled eggs coated in this flour-like grain. It was a pretty strange side dish, although the meal as a whole was very good!

Guaravita is a juice of the guarana seed. Some soft drinks also have the distinct, earthy flavor of this drink, but the sodas are definitely less strong than this Guaravita! It is a very popular beverage in Rio, and can be found at every restaurant, street kiosk, and grocery store.

A note about Brazil: I think that I ate more fast food in Rio than I eat in one year in the States. Ultimately, I had four choices for food in Rio: expensive sit-down restaurants (no, thank you); slightly sktechy street food (again, I will pass); fast food like McDonald's, KFC, and Subway (not ideal, but cheap); and groceries. Surprisingly, the groceries were more expensive than the fast food- even if we wanted to cook a group meal!

Peru

A quick not about Peru: because my dad was with me, I was able to sample the most foods because we could each order something different and then split it! Plus, we made it a mission to try as many cultural foods as possible!

This delicious dish, called lomo saltado, has an oriental origin: because of Peru's proximity to Japan, it gets a lot of Japanese immigrants. This dish of rice with sauteed veggies and steak slices on top of papas fritas largely resembles the vague "Asian stir-fry". One of my favorites!

Yep, we ate some alpaca steak. And boy, was it good! It had a nice texture and a flavor that was different from regular steak, but not weird. (And yes, llamas and alpacas are two different animals!)

Yummy- stuffed peppers! Specifically, recoto relleno is a dish in which the recoto pepper, a very spicy pepper, is stuffed (see photo below) and then baked. Baking the pepper gets rid of much of the spiciness, leaving it edible (but with a kick). The yellowish stuff around the pepper is mashed potato that was cooked with the pepper- this is just one variation of the popular dish.

Cuy, otherwise known as guinea pig. You can still see the form of the little rodent too- the upper right of the plate holds its head (its mouth is open). There was not a lot of meat on this half, but we still got to sample the flavor. It tasted kind of fishy (in a not-good way) and I am not a huge fan, but hey- still getting cultured!

Not to be confused with chicha, which is alcoholic, this chicha morada (literally "purple chicha") is a drink made from purple corn. It is rich in antioxidants (according the ads...) and is a super popular drink in Peru. Because it is made with corn, it isn't super sweet (although it is a little bit dulce) but it is pretty dense (but not thick).

Chicken soup, or caldo de gallina, was literally everywhere. Different variations had whole chicken chunks (with or without bone) in the soup, whereas this one just had shredded chicken.

Grilled meats: to read about this meal for four split between my dad and myself (we were protein craving!) read about it here.

Ceviche, Or cebiche. But no matter how you spell it, this has got to be Peru's most famous dish. And it is worth the attention and love! I have no idea what type of fish this is, but ceviche is fish that has been cooked by acidic sauces- not heat. Because of this, the fish seems raw in both appearance and texture. This platter, split between my dad and myself, had four different sauces that all had an acid bite- so we knew we weren't in any food danger! The four sauces were traditional (top left), black olive (top right), curry (bottom right), and some other one that we couldn't really identify, but seemed to be bell pepper (bottom left). All were delicious, and the fish was super fresh! Yum.

Pisco sour

Basically, pisco is a clear, grape-based alcohol that is produced in Peru. Peruvians have manufactured what can only be considered a "national drink" out of this alcohol called a pisco sour: pisco, lemon juice, simple syrup, and egg whites are blended together to produce a delicious cocktail. You can even get flavor-infused piscos, such as the cranberry on the left and the andean mint (muña) on the right. (My dad and I made these specific pisco sours- read about where and how here.)

This is my dad being a model during the Inca Trail, sipping some delicious Inka Cola. Inka Cola, Peru's national soft drink, tastes very similar to cream soda, and my dad was basically addicted. (Plus, they have an Inka Cola Cero- their zero-calorie version!) There is also an Inka Cola Moradita, which tastes like bubblegum and cinnamon mixed with some chicha morada.

In my attempts to become culturally acquainted with a country, food was definitely one of the many ways to do so! And I'm very glad that I tried to get to know these cultures' cuisines- I now have some new culinary favorites and recipes that I will try to make on my own.And maybe this post interested you in international cuisine- or even given you some new kitchen inspiration!

Until next time...

Besos,

Tina the Exploradora