Monday, August 15, 2011

Descent into Decadence

The NSF gave us a budget of 2600 to fly in and settle down. Our sponsor universities gave us an additional 1100 discretionary spending. The idea was that this would be just enough to live in the city, check out a few scenes, and maybe travel once or twice. Due to frugal living decisions mixed with decent trip planning, I ended up with a bigger surplus than expected. We dropped maybe 260 on Atacama and still have plenty left over. I put 240 into Patagonia tickets and set aside even more for guides/hostels/souvenirs. I still have plenty left. With only two weeks to go, it's exceedingly unlikely that I'll go over budget. Strange as it may seem, this is a problem for me. We got this money to enjoy Santiago, and if I have money left over it means I didn't experience as much as a could have. It's gonna be a looooong time before I come back here, if ever. I needed to find a way to burn through the remaining money in as productive a way as possible.

It occurred to me yesterday that I have almost no sense for local food. I've been making my own lunch and dinners. Up till now we've eaten out maybe once every other week, rarely in a place that really showcases the food. I do know a bit about the street food, the fast food, and the pub food. Specifically, I know that it's trying to kill me.


Don't get what I mean? Here are some of the more common foods you can find around here.

Empanadas: Make dough. Stuff with cheese. Deep fry.
Sopapillas: Make dough. Mix with pumpkin. Deep fry.
Churros: Make dough. Top with sugar. Deep fry.
Chorriana: Fry beef. Fry eggs. Fry onions. Put on french fries.

You might have heard about Chilean sea bass. Known here as merluza, its got a great flavor and a wonderful texture. I've had it many times and love it. What's the standard way to cook it? Deep fry. Don't forget the side of french fries.

Hot dogs and hamburgers are also popular. But because these don't have nearly enough oil in them they're almost always topped with guacamole and mayonnaise. Lots and lots of mayonnaise. If you're trying to watch your weight (or are a cheapskate) you can buy them without the guacamole. Not to say mayo is limited to here. If you don't top your sopapillas with copious amounts of hot sauce and mayo you're doing it wrong. Mayo is optional on empanadas in the same way tipping is optional in the States. I opted out once and got horrified looks from bystanders.

This would balance a little if vegetables were at all popular. And while salsa is delicious and omnipresent the only whole vegetables I've had in entrees were the fixings in sandwiches. Whatever you do, do not order a salad. I have seen salads consisting of shredded lettuce, a sliced up tomato, and a small pile of boiled potatoes. And before you say that sounds okay, keep in mind those are three separate salads. If I didn't cook for myself I'd be dead within two weeks. It's a tossup on whether it'd be from heart failure or beriberi. At least scurvy isn't a problem. You can get four pounds of oranges for like a dollar.

Sometime during Atacama I snapped. Chile has high quality beef and amazing seafood, and from what I've heard they do amazing things with them. Further, I could imagine myself going home, being asked "so what amazing foods did you try?" and replying "guac burgers". So to hell with deep fried mayonnaise. My new goal before I leave is to try as many different regional specialties as possible. Will fix the problem and give me a way to spend the rest of my money.

Sunday Tito and I decided to track down the not-very-elusive Seviche. It's cold raw whitefish 'cooked' by submerging it in lemon. Reasonably cheap and (I later found) is easy to make.


I made the mistake of eating the broth along with it, which Not A Good Idea. Once I figured this out the dish became a lot better. Definitely something I'd want to make myself in the future. Afterwards we tried conger eel, which supports my increasingly-strong hypothesis that eel is freaking awesome.

That's two down, many to go. I'm probably going to come back home a perfect sphere if my heart survives that long. Maybe I should go easy on the guacamole. Or I could start eating more raw-onion salads. The world's my oyster here. 60-cents-a-pound oyster.

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