Julio dancing at the Festival de la Papa. |
The unique thing about curanto is how it's prepared. Each ingredient is placed separately in a big pot and each layer is separated by a pile of leaves. In Julio's house, his mom covered the pot lid with a couple of big rocks, turning the pot into a pressure cooker. More traditionally, curanto is prepared in a big hole in the ground. It's just like in a pot, only everything is placed on rocks that are first heated up over a fire.
Milcao mix and sausages |
Uncooked chapaleles laying on top of leaves. |
Although the food here is awesomely fatty and delicious, and folks in many households enjoy overdoing it, there are still some less-than-awesome things about Chilean cooking. If you're a fan of spicy foods, you'll be disappointed. But more importantly is how the Chileans eat. They don't do breakfast-lunch-dinner the same as us back in the States. Breakfast is usually small and quick before work, like in the US, but lunches are always pretty big and hot. Everybody here seems to bring something to microwave: pasta, chicken, empanadas, etc. Lunch is comparable to our dinners, just a bit smaller. Sadly, dinner simply doesn't exist. Instead, folks eat once (pronounced own-say) around 6 or 7pm. Once is always tea with lots of bread, and could include homemade jams, butter, tubed spam-like meat paste, and/or something with eggs (our house is big on scrambled eggs and onions). It usually is delicious, especially since in the south homemade mayo and marmalade are popular, but tiny compared to a US dinner. I'll have a couple cups of tea and like 3 pieces of bread at a time when I'm usually eating half of the Wendy's dollar menu. However, being hungry a majority of the time at least helps balance out the lack of physical activity (due to rainy, cold weather I'm always in bed at home) and the fatty-ness of everything here.
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Festival de la papa photo album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.928058406404.2435457.5321418&type=1&l=9847078de9