Chilean Food: The Good

As you may have read in my last post, Chilean food was not as enticing to me as Colombian food.  Don't despair, if you are one of the two or three people besides myself who actually reads the things I write, because I did, in fact, find things to eat that provided me with genuine enjoyment (and I ate those things over and over and over again)...

Homemade hostel dinner of pork and vegetable quesadillas
with one of my personal guacamole experiments (avocado,
merquen, garlic salt, tomato and a little hot sauce).

1. This country has some amazing avocados, and they put mashed avocado on EVERYTHING.  While I can't say I always approve of the portion sizes in Chile, I have to admit that eating a sandwich with half a pound of ripe, mashed avocado on top is a pretty satisfying experience.  Having found Chilean restaurant cuisine to be a little out of my preferred price range in relation to the quality of what I was getting, I spent a lot of time perfecting my personal guacamole recipe and making picnics with guacamole tacos.  I still get a little wistful when my friends share photographs from Chilean markets, or when I go to Kroger and touch the overpriced, hard-as-a-rock avocados I am supposed to accept as my consolation prize.

2. They have merquen.  Merquen, or merken, is a ground seasoning made from a chili pepper used in traditional Mapuche cooking.  Also, it's freaking awesome.  Any restaurant or cafe in Chile that's worth even walking into will have merquen on the table for use on pretty much everything you eat (meat, vegetables, pizza).  The flavor is a little bit spicy and a lot smoky, and it is very versatile.  My favorite use for merquen is to put an absurd amount of it into my mashed avocado (with garlic, salt and lime) for a nice smoky guacamole (which inevitably ends up on my homemade guacamole tacos).  I am now salivating.

3. Paila marina (if you find a good place to get it) is pretty much the best local cuisine in Chile.  When I am unsure about a local cuisine, I tend to put my trust in the local free city tours to steer me in the right direction.  Unlike an expensive paid

Paila marina from Pailas Blancas, in the Mercado Central.  I
went to this restaurant and ordered this dish every time a new
person came to Santiago and wanted to have lunch with me.

tour, these people, who work on tips, will tell you where to go to get food that is both delicious and cost effective.  On my second day in Santiago, I went on a tour where the tour guide would not stop talking about a seafood soup called paila marina, and pointing out which places had it on the menu.  Paila marina basically consists of some broth and a ridiculous amount of assorted seafood.  (Or, at least, it does if it's good.  A friend of mine had a bad paila marina at a bar that contained more onions than seafood, and in which all the seafood was grossly overcooked.)  A bowl of paila marina ordered at the Santiago fish market is very likely to be the single best thing you put in your mouth while traveling in Chile.  If served with a proper hot sauce (*note: finding a proper hot sauce in Chile is almost like finding a unicorn - they tend to be incredibly bland, and some do not contain even a hint of spice, consisting of nothing but chopped tomatoes with chopped onions), which, so far, I've only found at the restaurant pictured above or in my own backpack stash, it becomes almost a religious experience for the seafood lover.  Squid, octopus, mussels, clams, shrimp, fish and occasionally some other mystery seafood so thoroughly fill the bowl that I considered it almost a feat in competitive eating to consume this meal the three or four times I had it.

The prettiest fried empanada I ate:
tomato, cheese, spinach.  The best one was
shrimp and cheese, but it was less
photogenic.

4. The fried empanadas are good enough to compensate for the failure of the baked empanadas.  I thought empanadas in Chile were a bust until I went to Valparaiso, where the guide on the local free city tour took us to an empanada place that served them fried.  At that moment, I took back every bad sentiment I had expressed about Chilean empanadas.  While the dough remains a bread dough and not the crispy, amazing corn of its Colombian counterpart, far less excess bread goes into these warm, gooey treats, where the cheese actually melts properly and sometimes you might even detect the presence a vegetable (hooray for nutrients in my fried treats)! The only negative thing about fried empanadas in Chile is their limited availability compared to the less appealing baked ones.

*Bonus: The fried shrimp and cheese empanada, which I discovered in a tiny port town where I went to see penguins, is probably the second best thing I put into my mouth in Chile (after paila marina, you perv).

*Double bonus: When your travel companion tries to order empanada #6 and empanada #72, and, due to language barriers, orders six of empanada #72, leading to a full day of consuming nothing but fried empanadas!

Santa Emiliana was one of my favorites!

5. When all else fails, wine.  The thing about Chile is you don't have to like the food that much, because almost everything tastes good when you've had enough wine!  It's ubiquitous, it's delicious, and you can get some great stuff for about $3 USD per bottle.  So drink up!