This week was relatively chill as I am feeling more and more at home here in Santiago. So without anything big or drastic to comment on I figured I could write a blog to answer the question all my family members ask when they call, “what are they feeding you”. So today I will treat you all to my personal review of the food I have had hear in Chile so far and how this differs from American food. Before coming to Chile, I did not have a specific opinion on Chilean food.
I thought it should be similar to other Latin American foods, like Mexican food or Peruvian. I assumed there would be a lot of chicken and rice and the typical Chilean foods like choclo, empanadas and carne a lo pobre. I was hoping that Chileans would like spicy food and hot sauce (like the country’s name suggests) because, I love spicy and flavorful food. Based on Chile’s geography I assumed that the Chileans eat a lot of fish because it is a country with so much access to the sea and the fishing industry. Also, I thought Chile had meat as good as Argentina's very famous meat. But since my arrival here in Chile my perception has changed a lot.
First I want to say something, I do not hate Chilean food, it is not terrible and could be much worse. Above all, I'm very lucky because my host mother is a very good cook. She is retired and takes great pride in cooking delicious and healthy foods and cooking with lots of variety. I understand that this is not very common because in some of the other student homes their host parents make the same food almost every day. It can be especially difficult for vegetarians, as vegetarianism is not very common in Chile and they often don’t know what to make of it.
But on the other hand, I can’t lie - Chilean food is very basic and a bit bland. Chilean food is based on white bread, rice, potatoes and beans. We eat bread with tomato and avocado with almost every meal. Carbs are certainly the star around here. Another common meal are many soups with beans or potatoes or rice. Sometimes these soups have chicken but mainly they are just vegetables and chickpeas or other beans. I am somewhat surprised that the Chileans are eatings so much soup, especially in the summer and fall months.
In addition, Chileans do not use many flavors or spices in their food. In my family's pantry in the United States we have over forty bottles with different spices or sauces to make a large number of different foods. We have spicy or sweet spices with Italian, Spanish, American, Indian, Chinese and more. We also use spicy sauce to flavor basic food like chicken and beans. I'm sure my family likes spices more than other families, but in general this is more common in the United States. On the other hand here in Chile my host mother has in her pantry; sat, pepper and almost nothing else.
In a way that good Chileans do not use unhealthy things like lots of cheese or mayonnaise or lots of salt. There is also a great abundance of fresh fruit and veggies (I get tomato and avocado with pretty much every meal). Additionally, Chileans don’t really do snacks, they have three meals a day and don’t generally have anything between. This cuts down on unhealthy snacking and on eating crummy processed foods. But especially for me, it would be better if the Chileans use more variety of flavors in their meals.
I will continue to try the Chilean food and hope that I will enjoy it more when you try more meals.