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Published: September 23rd 2010
HAPPY 200th BIRTHDAY CHILE!
September 18th is Chile's national holiday celebrating their independence 200 years ago. It is celebrated with large family parties consisting of much dancing, drinking and eating! The traditional dance is called Cueca and is characterized by it's figure eight and semicircle patterns, and traditional white handkerchiefs which are waived in the air. The traditional foods are grilled meat of all sorts, potato salad, rice and onion-tomato salad. The day after (the 18th is actually celebrated on the 17th, 18th, and 19th) at least in James's family it is traditional to make empanadas. The wine and chicha (a thick, sweet, grape-based drink that as some of you may remember my little hamster was named after!) are always plentiful on these days. Some other traditional foods like Mote con Huesillos are also eaten. Mote con Huesillos is a sweet drink filled with dried peaches and mote (which is a grain of some sort I believe... it's similar to large pieces of couscous). It is served cold and is VERY tasty!
Here at Yaya's house the whole family got together on the 18th and 19th (minus cousin Maca who had to go with her mom and my chilean brother
Gary who spent the holiday with his fiancee). There was a ton of tasty food, my favorites being the Mote con Huesillos and empanadas (Yaya makes mine with soy meat).
I had promised to bring the makings for s'mores because last time a lot of the family missed out... So James's dad improvised a marshmallow-roasting stick for me with an old broom handle and a barbeque stick! Maxi, James's little brother was especially excited to learn how to roast marshmallows and make s'mores and he was very pleased with the results. Turns out a lot of the family had seen people roasting marshmallows on tv and in movies and many of them thought that they were made of some sort of cheese! It seemed kind of funny to me, doing such a typical US thing as roasting marshmallows on the Chilean national holiday!
On the night of the 18th James and I went with his brother Maxi and a couple of his cousins to Parque Pretil, where they do a big fair-like thing with music, dancing, games, food, rodeos, stands and little rides. Then on the 19th some of us went again in the afternoon and took the
babies. Isi was a little cranky at first, but seemed to enjoy all the music and games and Anto squealed with delight every time she saw one of the games or rides!
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