What to eat Chile? culinary specialties and gastronomy

With some 6,430 km of coastline extremely rich in fish, thanks to the cold currents coming from Antarctica, seafood is omnipresent in Chilean cuisine. These include congrio (conger eel), salmón (salmon), merluza (whiting),atún (tuna), corvina (sea bass) and lenguado (sole). In the rivers and lakes of the south of the country (Los Lagos and Aisén regions), taste the excellent truchas (trout).

The diversity doesn't stop there, with a long list of seafood: camarones (shrimps), erizos (sea urchins), ostiones (scallops), pulpos (octopus), calamares (squid), picorocos (barnacles), centollas (giant crabs) in the south, not forgetting the highly prized locos (Chilean abalone). We also eat cochayuyo, a seaweed similar to kelp, with a firm, rubbery texture, sautéed with onion and chili pepper.

Although Chilean meat is less famous than that of Argentina, you'll still find quality products. Beef, pork, chicken, turkey and, to a lesser extent, lamb and mutton are the most common meats, not forgetting llama, traditionally eaten in the Andes in the north of the country.

These products are flavored with various herbs and spices - garlic, coriander, cumin, thyme, pepper - but without excess. However, merken, a Mapuche spice, is widely used in the country. Made from smoked chili pepper, ground coriander seeds and salt, it is mainly used to flavor fish, meat and cheese. The term " ají de color " or colored pepper actually refers to paprika, which is also widely used.

With its mild climate, central Chile is a huge orchard of peaches(melocotón), apricots(albaricoque), nectarines(durazno), cherries(cerezas), plums(ciruela), grapes(uva) and excellent melons(melón) and watermelons(sandía). The woods offer a wealth of berries, including strawberries(frutilla), blackberries(mora), blueberries(arándano) and local species such as the Chilean guava or murta, whose red berries have an intense wild strawberry flavour. There are also chirimoyas (a type of anona) with a very sweet white pulp, and avocados(aguacate).

There are many tasty snacks in the country, starting with empanadas. These turnovers - either fried(frita) or baked(de horno) - are usually stuffed with meat. Theempanada de pino is filled with ground beef, onion, hard-boiled egg, black olives, paprika and cumin. The Amerindian-inspired humita is the Andean equivalent of the Mexican tamale . Composed of a corn dough(choclo in Chilean Spanish) stuffed into a corn leaf, this dish is steamed. Meat is sometimes added, while others prefer it sweet.

For those who want to eat on the go, it's hard to avoid the completo, a Chilean hot dog with sausage, mashed avocado, diced tomato, sauerkraut, melted cheese and mustard. Onion and/or minced meat are sometimes added. Two other very common sandwiches are the barros jarpa, with melted cheese and ham, and the barros luco, with melted cheese and beef a la plancha.

As you can see, Chileans love bread. In fact, they are the biggest per capita consumers of bread in Latin America. For example, pan francés or marraqueta(pan batido), a type of bread with four mini baguettes, el pan italiano, more oily and crusty, or milcao, a traditional bread made from a mixture of potatoes and flour. Quite compact, it is often cooked in a broth.

Parrillada - better known in Argentina as asado - is a tutti-carni of beef, giblets and sausages placed on a grill. Pork and chicken are also sometimes used. It's usually accompanied by French fries and a vinegary tomato-onion-coriander mixture called ensalada chilena. In southern Chile, due to the Patagonian influence, mutton is much more prevalent. Steak a lo pobre is a steak with a horse's egg and onion compote.

More surprisingly, crudo alemán is a preparation of raw minced beef with chopped onions and a yoghurt-mayonnaise sauce spread on bread. It's a specialty inspired by German pork-based mett . Another popular Chilean meat, chicken is grilled, fried or simmered with various herbs. In the Andes, we prepare ch'arki, dried llama meat.Arrollado de huaso is a roll of meat and pork fat preserved with spices, inspired by certain Iberian cold meats.

There are also delicious land-sea recipes such as curanto. This specialty from the island of Chiloé is served in many ports in the south of the country. This dish uses an ancestral cooking technique already used by the Mapuches millennia ago. In a huge hole in the ground, stones are heated over a wood fire until they turn red, then seafood, meat (usually pork or chicken), corn on the cob and potatoes are added. This is then covered with nalca (Chilean rhubarb) leaves, followed by earthen sacks, for a perfect stew.

Ceviche, too, is made with fish or seafood marinated in lime juice. Unless you prefer erizos en salsa verde, sea urchin coral in a sauce of coriander, green onion and lemon juice. Machas a la parmesana are clams au gratin with Parmesan cheese, while chupe de locos is a thick abalone soup baked au gratin in the oven. Finally, let's not forget caldillo de congrio, a very popular conger eel soup simmered with carrot, onion and coriander.

Chileans are very fond of dishes in sauce and soups. Charquicán, common in the Andes, is made with ch'arki ( llama or beef), potatoes and pumpkin. It is often topped with a fried egg. Tomatican is very similar, but with the addition of tomato. Cazuela is a broth made from red meat, chicken, fish or shellfish, mixed with corn, pumpkin and potato, while porotos granados is a simple soup thickened with beans, corn and onions. More nourishing, pastel de choclo is a sort of parmentier hash in which mashed corn replaces the potato.

Chileans are very fond of the afternoon snack, known as "las once", as it was originally a snack taken around 11 a.m. before being moved to mid-afternoon. It's a very important moment for the locals, who take advantage of it to take a break, eat a slice of cake or a pastry with a cup of coffee or fruit juice.

The best-known Chilean pastry is certainly the küchen, which - as German speakers will have guessed - comes from the German word for cake. Chile is known for its large German diaspora, who arrived in the late ^19th century and settled in the south of the country. These include multi-layered cakes filled with buttercream, fruit or chocolate, as well as a variety of strudels and fruit tarts. Manjar, the local name for dulce de leche or milk caramel, is ubiquitous. The pastel mil hojas "mille-feuilles" is made with thin layers of cookies and manjar, sprinkled with chopped nuts.

While coffee is widely consumed in Chile, it is often made from soluble espresso, a far cry from the excellent Italian-style coffees that can be enjoyed in Argentina, for example. However, more and more restaurants and cafés are offering espressos and cappuccinos worthy of the name. Herbal teas(aguita) and tea are also very common. Maté is an infusion made from a local plant with numerous medicinal virtues, much appreciated in Chile as in neighboring countries.

Although the conquistadores introduced vines to the region in the late ^16th century, viticulture in Chile remained limited and highly controlled by Spain. It was only after Chile's independence in the ^19th century that the first French grape varieties were introduced, particularly in the center of the country. Although Cabernet Sauvignon is the most widely grown grape variety, Carménère steals the show. This Bordeaux grape variety was thought to have disappeared completely since the phylloxera crisis at the end of the ^19th century, before it was discovered in the 1990s that a few vines had had time to cross the Atlantic. Chile's temperate, generally sunny climate and long-standing know-how have earned it a privileged position among the world's leading wine producers, where it ranks ^8th.

The valleys of Colchagua, Casablanca, del Maipo, del Maule and Cachapoal are among the country's most renowned wine-growing areas, and there are numerous offers for wine-tasting tours. The quality of Chilean wines is well established, and the opening up of foreign markets has further consolidated their reputation. Pisco is a grape brandy produced between Peru and Chile, and is used to make pisco sur (pisco, lime, egg white).

Conversely, the poorer classes and students have always mixed low-quality wine with other beverages to create cocktails that are not lacking in originality, such as terremoto (white wine, pineapple ice and Fernet, an Italian herbal liqueur), tropicalísimo (white wine, pineapple juice and pisco), navegado (mulled wine with spices), borgoña (red wine with strawberry pieces and ice cubes) and jote (known in Spain as kalimotxo), which combines red wine and cola.

But Chileans also appreciate beer, where production - particularly in the Los Lagos region, with its large Germanic population - is significant. National brands include Báltica, Escudo and Cristal. If you're feeling curious, pack a bottle of licor de oro, produced in Chiloé and made with whey, saffron and lemon zest.