Chilean Cuisine, Part II

Well I hope that you all enjoyed that tasty morsel yesterday. Continuing with my series on Chilean food, today I present perhaps the oldest of Chilean cuisines. This pocket-like food is purely Chilean, and some of you may have eaten them in Latino restaurants in the states. Most people make these at home every couple of weeks, however there are also several renowned bakeries famous for them. 

I'm talking, of course, about the "empanada." Empanada is a word derived from the verb "to wrap," so literally this food is a hot wrap. Originating in Spain, the empanada came during colonial times to Chile and has since become the unofficial victual of the country. In Chile, you can buy empanadas filled with all sorts of things, from tuna to fruit. However, by far the most popular fillings are either "pino" or cheese. Cheese empanadas are filled with a local white cheese and have a more flaky, croissant-like crust. Pino empanadas are made of a more solid dough, as shown above. Pino is a Mapuche word (the Mapuche are one of two indigenous groups of Chile), and the filling consists of ground beef, hard-boiled eggs, shortening, onions, olives, and sometimes raisins (though I hate them with raisins). 

The empanada is a great food because it represents tradition and adaptation to Chilean customs. Also, it can be bought made at any grocery store or bakery, while still being a common homemade food. They are great to eat on the go, but are usually served as a sort of appetizer or first course prior to a main course. They're easy to make and actually pretty fun. They can be easily frozen and consumed later, so I encourage you all to make some yourself. Here's a link for a recipe. Enjoy!

Empanadas de pino recipe

Preview for tomorrow: Chilean Bakery

Chilean Cuisine, Part I

By popular request (mostly from Flood), tonight's posting is going to be the first in a series covering Chilean cuisine. Today's delicacy is one of the most ubiquitous of Chilean foods, something that all people, no matter of class, age, or gender can enjoy. This wondrous tube of processed meat is commonly known as the hot dog. Here in Chile, the hot dog, or "vienesa," is one of the most common of street foods.

The most popular of the vienesas served here in Santiago is probably that of Domino. Domino is a small restaurant in the downtown that made the hot dog famous eighty years ago. Today it is a national franchise with many locations. However, to snag this photo, I journeyed to the perilous Centro to eat at the original Domino. My own father loved Domino very much- going there is not only for good food but also an experience. There you can only stand and it is constantly packed. I arrived with my camera and they were only too eager to serve me. I asked simply for a "completo," shown above, with a chirimoya juice. A completo is the standard hot dog served in Chile. It includes the hot dog, bun, americano (a type of sauce), mayonnaise with a relish in it, tomato with cilantro, and avocado. It sounds weird, what with no ketchup or mustard, but it's honestly amazing. These guys are so huge I typically eat one with a fork an knife. Served alongside a cold glass of chirimoya juice (chirimoya is a green fruit that doesn't exist in the states really), it's a complete meal, both cheap and delicious. This combo cost me a whopping 1200 pesos, or about two dollars. Bon appetite!

Preview for tomorrow: The empanada.

Halloween en Chile

Friday night I had a little halloween party here in my apartment. It was the first real party I had here and it went very well. I had a great time and people didn't leave my apartment until about 5 in the morning. Above are five of the best pictures that were taken, but for those of you with the Facebook, you can see the rest of them there. I hope everyone had a great halloween. Though I definitely missed Halloween in Madison, it was really fun spending it here. It was cool to know that even though things are often so different here, people still love Halloween. Though I'll tell you all that it was incredibly difficult to find a pumpkin, seeing as they really don't grow them in Chile. Also, they were damned expensive and I had no way of bringing one to my apartment. Everyone's costumes were great. I don't have mine on (I was V from V for Vendetta) because it turned out to be obnoxious trying to host a party with a mask on the whole time. Because I missed what you guys did for Halloween, if you feel like leaving a comment talking about your Halloween weekend, leave a post with this one. 

Also, to follow later, food posts, so stick around for that tonight! Thanks again as always.

Sala de Automovil Santiago 2008

In front of one of my favorite classics, an MG.

Pretty wild new color scheme for the Volvo C30,a model

we don't get in the states.

Two of the eight Chinese brands.

The all-chocolate Peugeot 306. Ten minutes later they opened 

it up for people to start eating it.

The orgasmic Audi R8. I went from six to midnight

when they turned it on. This car really is one of the 

hottest cars I've ever seen.

Today I was invited by my uncle to go with him and Hans to the Santiago Auto Show. I will admit that before seeing it I was skeptical of the selection they would have. To my surprise they had every American and European brand that you could think of, including Ferrari, Masserti, Alfa Romeo, and Fiat in addition to many more. There were lots of cool cars to see, but what really shocked me were two fold: the staggering number of Chinese brands entering the market this year, and the high prices of cars here in Chile.

First, the price of cars here is unbelievable. Cars that you see people my age driving in the states are cars for more well-established people here. You don't see all these cars to die for in the wealthy areas. My uncle is the only exception, driving a BMW 7-series, and he only bought that after he had a heart attack and decided he couldn't take his money to the grave with him. Hans is looking for a new car now that his is almost 10 years old. He's looking at a Mazda 6, a Toyota RAV-4, or a Honda CR-V. Although these are very nice cars, no American would look at them and say "Wow! That is a nice car!" A fully loaded Honda CR-V, their mini-SUV, in the states is about $25k fully loaded. Today at the show, were were informed that the same model costs more than 19 million pesos (today the dollar has hit it's highest point, 675 pesos to the dollar; this means that the CR-V costs nearly $30k). Though this might not seem like much, keep in mind that the median household income in the US is $46k, while in Chile it's only $14k. So not only is the car more expensive, Chileans also make far less.

The other shocker was the staggering number of Chinese automakers out there. I counted 8 brands today at the show, of which I've heard of exactly none. The come in funky names from Ssang Yong to Great Wall, if you can believe it. They are much cheaper and what's funny is how easy it was to see how they ripped off popular designs from other brands. The $90k Mercedes S-Class flagship has been replicated by Ssang Yong almost exactly, offered at a price of about $55k. China has far more relaxed copyright laws, so this sort of thing happens all the time. So the moral of the story is that you might think the US was on top in the past, but as our economy is going down the proverbial shitter with our automakers today asking for $10 billion in assistance, the Chinese are exporting upwards of ten brands to more nations than the US. Think about that for a bit.

Have a great day or week or what not. If you're interested, you should download the song "Volver" by a singer named Beto Cuevas; this song is my new favorite here, and the singer is the former front man of famous latin band La Ley, also from Chile.

A Word About Classism

Up until this point in my blog, I have been posting about what I've been doing, what's new in my life here, and other observations about Chilean culture. Let me preface what I'm about to discuss by saying that all these previous things are true. Chile is a beautiful country, with wonderful people and a culture very rich in tradition and national pride. However, that being said, I think it's also important to discuss the darker sides of any culture. We in the US have our own deeply seeded forms of prejudice. Think about the still relevant discussions about racism and our polarized political climate, not to mention the disparity in possession of our nation's wealth.

Chile is no different than the US in many ways. Politics is still very much the national sport here, not just soccer. There's also a great deal of prejudice among different groups of people, and in many ways it's a culturally segregated nation. However, where the US often suffers from rampant racism, Chile suffers from an extreme separation of classes.

You might be wondering why I am all of the sudden discussing this. I have always thought about the classist nature of Chilean society, however I hadn't really had first-hand experience with it until now. Last Friday night, I was at a discoteque in Lo Barnichea, a suburb of Santiago. It's a diverse area; a great deal of it is beautiful homes in the hilly areas to the northwest of Santiago. However, it also has many poorer areas, including an area called Cerro 18, which is a large "campamento" in the suburb (a campamento is essentially a shanty town). Well, in any case, this club was in one of the poorer areas of Lo Barnichea. As I was walking back to the car with a friend, we were shocked to turn the corner to see a group of five guys standing near the car. Our first reaction was to walk the other way in order to avoid any trouble, but then the group walked off and we head towards the car.

As we neared the car, however, one the guys came up and asked me for a cigarette, and at first I didn't want to give him any for fear of assault, but he was alone so I offered him one. As it turned out he was a little drunk, and he began to divulge his whole life's story. In summary, it turned out to be a very touching and educational tale. He told us about how he was born to unmarried parents in Concepcion, his father being a miner. Immediately we knew about his economic situation because miners in Chile were always, and in many ways still are, exploited. He told us about how his parents forced him to go to school, but that it was always hard because he also had to work to help make ends meet. Through sheer force of will and intelligence, he managed to graduate from high school. Now he was trying to work and get into college at the same time. Every day he woke up at six in the morning to work at seven, where he was a security guard, until about 8 or 9 at night. His wage was the minimum of 144k pesos a month, or about $290. With that he had to pay his rent, food, and try to pay for books, in addition to paying 50k pesos every month to an ex-lover for her to care for their daughter. The double-edged sword of teen pregnancy in Chile is George Bush's wet dream, where sexual education is practically untaught in schools and non-profit groups are not permitted to distribute condoms; also abortion is totally illegal and the Church teaches that abstinence is the only option. This kid went on to tell us how he is constantly passed up for scholarships by students from Santiago with worse grades and scores, and that his only option is to apply for scholarships for indigenous peoples. The opportunity is a good one, but he explained that having this on records indicates to those who will read his applications that he is of indian descent and he said that this lessens his chances of being accepted into a better college.

He went on an on with many more details that are too many to explain here, suffice it to say that the overall theme of his story was that he is very limited as far as upward mobility goes, and that the Chilean system coupled with classism and a bit of racism will probably prevent him from ever finishing college.

I know that this is not a unique tale, being as many in the US could express similar experiences. To that I also add this quick story to show the level of classism in this country. As opposed to American bars and clubs, there isn't a single one here that cards anyone coming in because the drinking culture is so much more relaxed. However, two weekends ago Hans and I went to a bar to meet up with some of his friends. The bar was in Providencia near Calle Suecia, a popular strip of bars and clubs in Santiago, notorious now for attracting delinquency and unsavory types of people. We got in line to get into the bar, and saw the bouncer checking everyone's ID's. I was surprised and began to take out my ID when another bouncer walked up to us, pulled us out of the line and let us in. Afterwards I asked Hans why that happened and why we didn't have to show ID, and he said that they weren't looking at drinking ages, they were looking at people's last names "para ver la pinta" with their face. In other words, depending on your clothes and how common your last name was, you might not get in. Had my last name been Gonzalez and I had been wearing a T-shirt, they probably would have asked for my ID.

Well, that was a very long post, but I hope that it was interesting. I am continuing to love my time here, but I thought it important to provide a balanced point of view and not just say that everything is perfect here. As always, I hope you are all doing well and that it's not getting to cold there in the states; today it was 78 degrees and sunny. Have a nice week!

New Apartment and News

View from my balcony.

View from the rooftop pool of the cordillera

My kitchen and living room from the balcony.

Rooftop endless pool

Nothing to do with my apartment, but a nice shot

of the presidential palace, La Moneda, I took when I was 

last downtown.

Dear Friends,

Sorry for not having posted once again in a very long time. At first there was little to report. I was just enjoying myself and going out and relaxing. Fortunately, my extremely vacation is now at an end.

Today I finally moved into a new apartment, and I couldn't be happier. It's a very beautiful apartment, big enough to have people over and spread out a little bit. This apartment, though, was less about comfort (though I think it's very comfortable), and more about location. Here I find myself a half block from the nearest metro station. Also, within a 20 minute walking distance I can reach two malls filled with anything I'd need. In addition, within ten minutes are a number of pantries and other shops. Finally, I'm two blocks from the best restaurant and cafe district in town. Included above are some photos of the apartment, views from my awesome balcony, and views from the 16th floor pool and parilla.

I also start work tomorrow at the University of Development. Later this week I also hope to get in contact with the University of Chile's law school where I'll be working in the environmental law department. I'm very happy with my job prospects and am excited to get to work.

This Friday I'll be having a little apartment welcoming party, so if you find yourself somewhere near the bottom end of the planet, stop by La Alsacia 151 depto. 801 in Las Condes, Santiago de Chile. All are welcome but be warned that only pisco will be served here. Pisco is the unofficial national drink of Chile. It basically amounts to a semi-sweet white brandy distilled from grapes (for preparation methods, see Pisco Sour). I hope to have some pictures of that to post on later, as well as other news and happenings. I'm also planning on writing a post surveying local cuisine, replete with pictures and preparation methods, for those of you that are more culinarily inclined.

Enjoy and thanks so much for reading. Please feel free to post comments!

Derek

Long time no post...

Hey everyone, sorry for not having posted in a long time. My computer lost its mind last week, and I had to take it in. The good news is I have it back, the bad news is that I lost all my new Chile pictures and now my computer has the Spanish version of OSx running on it, so all my pages, including Facebook and this blog, show up in Spanish. 

In regards to recent news, the biggest things that have happened are that I have found a job and possibly an apartment. In all likelihood I'll begin working sometime after the 15th of this month at the Universidad de Desarollo, or the University of Development. There I'll be working with the dean of their public policy department on several interesting projects. Right now it seems that I'll be administering an exchange program that is going on between the university and an American university, though I'm not yet sure of the details. Also, I will be conducting research here and comparative research with the U.S., attempting to discover ways to change labor laws so that more women can enter the workforce here in Chile. Although Chile is certainly a leader in most things in South America, especially in comparison with more backward countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador, one area where they lack development is in the percentage of women in the workforce here.

The professor with whom I'll be working, Eugenio, seems to be a pretty awesome dude, one of those crazy geniuses- he's fairly scatterbrained. He also said he wants me to teach Spanish to the struggling gringos at the university, in addition to tutoring English.

After finding out I have a paying job, I set out to look for apartments. I've narrowed it down to this one area of Santiago, and within that area I'm pretty sure this one apartment is the ideal choice. I'll be making my final decision today and hopefully will be moving in this weekend or early next week.

Anyway, that's the biggest news that I have to offer. I'm still having a great time and loving the mountains, the weather, and especially the people. By the way, I've discovered the origin of the word "gringo." Apparently it all started when an American company first brought stop-lights to Chile at the end of the 19th century. They couldn't speaking Spanish at all, so in attempting to explain how they worked, they would say: "Red means stop, and green means go. Red stop, green go." Say "green go" a few times out loud and you'll discover the tender name that we've been given by latinos. 

Hopefully my next post will have pictures, including new apartment photos. Otherwise, until next time!