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Published: March 27th 2012
So, what do we eat down here? The food in South America has not been what we expected to this point and it deserves a blog of its own.
Let me start by saying that Sarah has an uncurable hunger. Before finishing lunch she is on to thoughts of snacks and ultimately dinner. She just read over my shoulder and said I can say more, "I am hungry all the time. ALL THE TIME. I am thinking about it all the time. What to eat when I wake up. Snack before breakfast. Breakfast. Snack after breakfast...I mean, I am hungry right now (we just ate breakfast)..." She went on and on. Me, I have been hungry once or twice on the whole trip. It is a really weird shift. I do not know which is more surprising, the fact that she can never stop thinking about eating or the fact that I never think about eating. Very strange.
Chile and Argentina (food pics below have C/A on them) It makes sense to lump these two countries together as the food seemed pretty similar. In one of the blog posts I mentioned not really knowing that is true Chilean/Argentianian
food? Well, I am not sure we ever really learned. We had a few good local meals (Curanto and Locro), but outside of that it was the same stuff we eat back home.
Restaurant eating happens about once a day for us, sometimes less. And typically it is lunch. So the rest of the time we have to figure something else out. In general we try to find a grocery store and stock up there. In Santiago and Punta Arenas we had good kitchen access and would make pasta and sauce for dinner. The rest of the time though we have been mostly camping and/or have not had a kitchen. What do you eat when you can not cook? Our meals consist of bread and mozzerella cheese (very little cheese selection). Snacks are apples, peaches, bananas, peanuts. And Sarah is always trying to sneak some kind of chocolate or ice cream. But that is really it. Wow, sounds sad when I type it out. Sooooo much bread. And not like wheat bread or grain bread. Just all plain old white, bleached flour bread.
When we eat out, here is the menu of every single restaurant: Salad, Pizza, Sandwiches,
Ice Cream (C/A)
Sarah loves ice cream...especially in ArgentinaPasta with separate listing of sauces, a meat with side section and Desserts. There is so little variation it is astonishing. It makes comparing prices easier, but the lack of variety is not too exciting. We are trying not to have anything with the local water and since they wash the veggies before making it, the Salads are out. Lettuce is on a lot of the sandwiches so they are out. That leaves us with pizza, pasta and a meat with a side. And pasta does not make sense when we can make it at hostals. Pizza? Geez, we eat so much bread already. What does that leave us with? Not much. Chicken and french fries or beef and french fries. I have never eaten so many french fries in my life. For the first meal or two it was nice, but at this point if I never eat french fries again in my life I would be ok with that. And we still have two months...yikes.
And very little rice. Zero beans. Maybe that is more of a central america thing? Or is yet to come?
Geez, after putting the pictures up of Chile/Argentina food I realized
Locro (C/A)
Bummer we don´t have a photo of this, but it is a more authentic meal. It was a soup/stew kind of dish.
We also tried the rubia and negro (blonde and dark) beers - the two they had on tap. Matt thought they were not very good, Sarah liked the blonde we have failed miserably of taking food photos so I have to apologize to Mark Stacy. Mark, you trained me well in the art of food pictures, but somehow when I crossed in to the southern hemisphere my skills vanished. I have failed you and I will try to make up for it in Peru and Ecuador.
On the drink front, a few of the pictures are posted with some of the highlights. 94% of what we drink is bottled water, whatever is cheapest at the grocery store. 5% is coffee for Sarah. And the other 1% is fruit juice, coke, or a local alcoholic beverage. For water we pick up a big 5 liter bottle if we are in a place for a day or two. Otherwise we are getting 2-2.5 liter bottles. Always bottled, which may have been overkill in Chile and Argentina but the reprecussions of drinking bad water aren´t worth it. Water either comes with gas or without gas. On occassion we have accidentally gotten the with gas kind. I guess if you are used to it it could be good, but we don´t like it. Three times we have had to purify water when
Curanto (C/A)
finally, another more authentic meal out on hikes, but those have been few and far between and now that we are out of iodine and only have a nasty chlorine type pill, we avoid that as much as possible.
Juice is rarely refridgerated (neither is milk or eggs). OJ is the go to, but sometimes peach. They come in maybe liter sized cartons and are a bit difficult to carry around so we usually only get juice if staying in a place for a few days.
On the alcoholic beverage front, we have tried a few local beers, wine from our vineyard tour, and a couple pisco sours. Of course we have a picture of every alcoholic drink we have had. Alcohol is expensive though and not really in our budget so we rarely have a drink.
Peru (P)
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Mark Stacy
non-member comment
Looking good
Matt. I finally found the link and have been checking out your progress. You have a talent for this kind of thing. Maybe you should be a travel writer. Looks like you and Sarah are having a ton of fun. Keep it up!