What to eat en Patagonie? culinary specialties and gastronomy

In hotels, breakfast is usually served between 7:30 and 10:00 am with coffee or tea, fruit juice, toasted bread, butter, jam or ham and cheese sandwich. The locals, for their part, prefer paila: scrambled eggs with ham or cheese. Lunch, between 14h and 15h, is the real meal of the day. Moreover, most restaurants offer menus often consisting of a starter(cazuela or caldillo), a main course (fried fish, grilled chicken, pork chops, etc.) accompanied by chips and sometimes mashed potatoes, rice or salad, and a dessert (fresh fruit, rice cake, jelly.). In Chilean Patagonia snacking is a very important break, called las ounce. If "ounce" means "eleven" in Spanish, it's simply because Chileans borrowed this term from the Spaniards for whom las once is a snack taken around 11am between breakfast and lunch. It can consist of a piece of cake, an ice cream sundae or a completo (hot dog) with fruit juice or a hot drink. Dinner, at 9pm, is rather light and often sweet: coffee or tea with a whole bunch of snacks. Nowadays, many Chileans don't know the difference between las ounce and dinner.

Many of the dishes eaten in Patagonia are classics of Argentine and Chilean cuisine. There are also Patagonian dishes that have become popular in the rest of the country.

A good example of a dish eaten in both Argentina and Chile,asado refers to anything that can be slow-roasted on a parrilla (grill). The secret of a good asado lies in the way the meat is cut and the heat of the embers maintained. The pieces, which have been salted beforehand, are placed horizontally on a grill or a la criolla (vertically, on stakes) over glowing coals. You'll need to be patient, as the meat won't be removed for an hour or more. This is because Argentines and Chileans, unlike Europeans or North Americans, are not fond of rare meat. This method results in meat that is thoroughly cooked, without burning, and very juicy. The Argentinians, in particular, are masters of this technique, and have adapted their cuts of meat to this form of cooking. You won't find the same cuts as on the French market. Otherasado-cooked specialties include sausages (chorizo), red pudding(morcilla), tripe(chinchulines) and cheese(provoleta), which are themselves grilled over coals. Among the most common cuts is bife de chorizo, a rib-eye steak cooked on its own fat. The bife de lomo is a very thick and tender fillet, cut from the lower back, a must-try for fans of rare meat, as it is generally served pinker than other cuts. All Argentines, and to a lesser extent Chileans, across all regions and social classes, prepare their own asados. Many apartments are equipped with parrillas (in the garden or on the balcony), as are campsites. You'll also see many improvisedasados on the side of the road or in parks. Theasado, like mate, represents a social bond. Gathering around an asado on a Sunday means getting together, talking and taking the time for the meat to cook.

Other types ofasado are still organized in the countryside: theasado con cuero , for example, where a veal cut into pieces is buried in a pit, covered with zinc sheets and embers that are kept hot for several hours. And of course, while beef is now much more accessible in Patagonia, mutton and lamb were traditionally the region's staple meats. So try cordero patagonico al palo, Patagonia's signature dish. The meat is cooked outdoors on a metal cross for an entire day, leaving the skin crispy and the meat melting like butter. And to accompany it all, the inevitable chimichurri sauce, made with olive oil, parsley, chilli, garlic and vinegar.

Other meat recipes include matambre, a kind of beef, pork or veal and vegetable wrap. Alternatively, guanaco meat has been consumed by the Tehuelche people of Patagonia since time immemorial, and is credited with providing sustenance for the tribes throughout Patagonia's exceptionally harsh winters. As is the norm with indigenous cuisines, the Tehuelche feasted on the whole guanaco, including the fat and entrails, although these days you'll mainly find only lean cuts and steaks on Patagonian menus.

Together, Chile and Argentina boast some 12,000 km of coastline bathed by some of the world's richest fish stocks, thanks to the cold currents coming from Antarctica. In other words, the choice and quality of seafood is second to none. In general, it's advisable to order fish a la plancha to be sure it's fresh, unlike dishes in sauce, which can mask the age of a fish caught three days earlier. In addition to the large, specialized restaurants, you can also visit the municipal markets of major port cities. The fish is often excellent and the prices ridiculous. The ubiquitous fish are congrio (conger eel), atún (tuna), corvina (sea bass), lenguado (sole) and, of course, the succulent merluza negra (Patagonian toothfish). As for mariscos or seafood, it's Byzantium here too: camarones (shrimps), erizos (sea urchins), ostiones (scallops), pulpos (octopus), calamares (squid), mejillón (mussel). There aren't necessarily dozens of recipes to choose from; here, you can enjoy the freshness of the product, which is prepared simply grilled - in this case, order a parrillada de mariscos - or sometimes even raw. Such is the case with ceviche. This South American dish is traditionally from Peru and Chile. Made from cubes of raw fish or seafood marinated in lemon juice, onions and coriander, it is reputed to cure chuchaki, or hangovers.

Near rivers and lakes, truchas (trout) and salmones (salmon) are generally inexpensive. Trucha patagonica can be prepared in a variety of ways, including grilled, pan-fried, roasted and in creamy stews. Even further south, in Tierra del Fuego, chupe de centolla will thrill all shellfish lovers. Imagine a creamy king crab stew, topped with breadcrumbs and cheese and gratinated to perfection. A real treat!

For those wavering between meat and fish, there's a Patagonian dish that could satisfy everyone. Curanto is a traditional dish from Chile's Chiloé archipelago, prepared for millennia by the Mapuche Indians. It is cooked in a hole one meter in diameter dug directly into the ground, covered with stones and heated by a wood fire. Seafood, meat, sausages, potatoes, corn and chapaleles - patties made from potato and wheat flour - are wrapped in nalca (Chilean rhubarb) leaves. More simply, curanto can also be prepared in a large pot, heated over a wood fire or on a barbecue grill. This simmered curanto is called pulmay in central Chile.

Of course, if you're feeling a little hungry, you won't want to miss one of the icons of Chile-Argentina cuisine: the empanada. These half-moon-shaped turnovers can be filled with any kind of filling, even if meat predominates. In Patagonia, of course, mutton has pride of place. Empanadas de cordero are stuffed with succulent Patagonian roast lamb. Another on-the-go specialty is the choripan , a hot sandwich made with chorizo, which in this case is a large spicy sausage and not a dry sausage like Spanish chorizo. It's served with salsa criollo, made with red onions and vinegar, and chimichurri sauce.

Because of its rather harsh climate, Patagonia is primarily a land of livestock, not crops. Cereals and vegetables are grown fairly locally, and more often than not imported from northern Chile and Argentina, where climatic conditions are more favorable. Bakers and supermarkets offer large quantities of bread, rarely sold as a baguette, but often in the form of rolls: el pan francés or marraqueta (sort of four mini baguettes) or el pan italiano (oilier and crispier). You'll find white bread, brown bread, cereal bread and, if you're lucky, olive or walnut bread. Chile is the world's second-largest consumer of bread, after Germany. Milcao, a traditional bread whose dough is a mixture of flour and potatoes. Potatoes are very popular, and French fries are the most common accompaniment to meat in both Argentina and Chile.

Once again, as Patagonia is not a very fertile agricultural land, especially in the southernmost regions, sweet preparations are traditionally quite rare. Chile and Argentina have immense orchards, particularly in the central regions of these two countries, where you'll find all kinds of fruit. However, certain not too desolate regions of Patagonia are ideal for growing fruit trees, producing peaches(melocotón), apricots(albaricoque), nectarines(durazno), apples(manzana) and excellent melons(melón) and watermelons(sandia). The Argentine town of Los Antiguos even has its own cherry festival. The woods offer a host of berries such as strawberries(frutilla), blackberries(mora), blueberries(mirtillo) and more. In fact, the Chilean strawberry, which grows naturally in the rainforests of southern Chile, is the origin of strawberry plants grown all over the world. For the more inquisitive, Patagonia is home to the tart berries of the calafate or berberis, generally consumed in juice, jam or even ice cream.

The many waves of immigration have left their mark on the region's cuisine, particularly pastries. In Chile, for example, the German influence is very strong, and Chileans enjoy kuchens at snack time. These include strudels, filled with apple, cherries, curd cheese and dried fruit, and hearty fruit tarts. The very popular brazo de reina is a rolled cake filled with dulce de leche and dusted with powdered sugar. Emblematic of both Argentina and Chile, dulce de leche or milk jam is sometimes called manjar.

In Argentina's Chubut province, the Welsh community is famous for its tea houses, which serve scones and torta negra, a kind of cake made with brown sugar, walnuts, orange zest, candied fruit and cinnamon. Miga sandwiches are delicate sandwiches made with buttered, crusty white bread, somewhat similar to the English cucumber sandwiches served for tea. Here, they are also topped with very thin slices of charcuterie, cheese, hard-boiled egg and lettuce. Alfajores are small shortbread cookies filled with dulce de leche or jam and coated in a chocolate shell.

A noble heir to German immigration, chocolate is very much appreciated in the region. San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, is often referred to as the Chocolate Capital of South America. It's home to a host of well-established chocolatiers, not to mention ice-cream parlors whose creams are said to be the best in Argentina. Hot chocolate is popular, even if Argentines prefer coffee. And with an Italian, Spanish and Germanic heritage, there's no reason to deprive yourself, as coffee in Argentina is often considered excellent. On the other hand, coffee lovers visiting Chilean Patagonia may be a little more disappointed, as the coffee is rarely good, as it's often made from instant powder.

But if there's one infusion everyone in the region agrees on, it's mate. Made from yerba mate, an indigenous plant found as far south as Brazil, it has been consumed in the region for thousands of years. An excellent heart tonic, it is sipped all day long. Traditionally, it is brewed in a small calabash (a type of drained and dried gourd) while the juice is sucked through a filtering straw called a bombilla. More than just a drink, maté enables Argentines and Chileans to socialize, meet and chat. Gauchos follow a precise ritual when drinking mate: seated in a circle, they pass the drink clockwise from hand to hand.

Although vines can only begrown in the more temperate regions of northern Patagonia, this does not prevent wine from being a highly prized product in both Argentina and Chile, the world's ^6th and ^7th largest producers respectively. If Argentine wine does not yet enjoy the international renown of its Chilean neighbor, it's because Argentine bodegas (wineries) are only now maturing to offer excellent wines of consistent quality. Introduced by the Spaniards, vines have been developed by generations of growers, mostly of Italian and Spanish origin, over a 2,000 km strip that follows the Andes mountain range and extends into the valleys created by the melting snow. The region that produces 80% of Argentina's wine lies between the cities of San Juan and Mendoza. As for Patagonia, production is concentrated in the north, in the valleys of the Río Negro province, notably in San Patricio del Chañar, near Neuquén. Argentina's star grape variety is Malbec, little appreciated in its native Bordeaux region. On the red side, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah are also widely used, and Argentine production also offers the full range of grape varieties used for whites, from Chardonnay and Chablis to Riesling and Gewurztraminer.

Chile is known the world over for its fine, exquisite wines, which are exported abroad, but also mainly to Patagonia, where the wines are closer to European vintages than to those of central and northern Argentina, due to its cooler climate and higher latitude. Red wine is successfully produced in Patagonia under the names of Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot, Pinot Noir and, here again, a star variety that is little known in its native Bordeaux region, Carménère. Wines made from chardonnay, gewurztraminer, sauvignon blanc and riesling best represent the freshness of the region's climate. The first French grape varieties were introduced to Chile in the ^mid-19th century, before exports were banned. But it would seem that the conquistadors were already growing vines long before that. For it's true that Chile has all the right conditions for this type of plantation: a temperate climate, four distinct seasons and fertile soil. The quality of Chilean wines has been rewarded many times over, but it is above all its openness to foreign markets that has earned it its reputation as Latin America's leading wine exporter.

Beer. But in Argentina, as in Chile, you never turn down a cerveza (beer), and microbreweries are flourishing in Patagonia. The region's best are Sholken Negra (El Calafate), Tropera (Coyhaique), Bagules (Puerto Natales near Torres del Paine) and more than a dozen distinct micro-cervezerias in Bariloche alone. There's even the Beagle brewery in Ushuaïa. Other local beers - often very light - include Quilmes.

Strong spirits. Of Italian origin, Fernet-Branca is very popular in Argentina. This herbal liqueur is usually mixed with Coca-Cola and lots of ice. In Chile, pisco sour is considered the national drink. This cocktail is made with pisco, grape brandy, lemon, sugar and sometimes egg white. The drink was popularized in Chile, although it was the Peruvians who invented the pisco sour.