Food When Skiing in Chile
Chilean food (that is often described as gastronomy) can be hard to find, especially at the Chile ski resorts. And when you do find it, it’s often not that distinctive from other international foods.
At glitzy Chile ski resort hotels you’ll probably be laden with a huge range of international food of very high quality. With four meals a day consisting of decadent buffets and delicious a la carte menu items, you’ll need to ski or board really hard to work off the calories associated with the gastronomical indulgences.
Typical Chilean meals may consist of huge slabs of meat, so Chile is great for carnivores. If you order a hamburger in some restaurants in Chile, all you may get is the meat patty! Fish is also reasonably plentiful. The accompaniments or sauces for the meats are not particularly spicy, and even the popular casserole type dishes are somewhat plain. In some places vegetarians may get stuck with really simple fare such as rice and beans.
Breakfast (desayuno) at the resort hotels is a major sugar loading affair. Sugar-laden items include biscuits, cakes, tarts and super syrupy caramel sauce that is supposed to be spread on the bread that is also of the sweet variety. Other common breakfast items are sliced ham and cheese, and gorgeous fruit juices.
In budget hotels, you’ll more likely get very simple fare such as flattened white rolls (that are sort of like biscuits) with jam. This is commonly accompanied by instant Nescafe coffee.
A traditional Chilean food item is the cherimoya, which is a type of custard apple that sort of tastes like pineapple. It’s quite yummy and easy to see why it’s so popular.
Chile Wine and Beverages
The wines of Chile are world renowned, so you’ll have plenty of fun wine tasting, either at the wineries themselves or tasting by the bottle over dinner! There are various wine valleys near Santiago such as Maipo, Colchagua, Aconcagua , and Casablanca. Chile is most well known for its reds (vinos tinto) with lots of full bodied reds as well as some lighter reds such as Pinot Noir and Carmenere. The Carmenere grape is not commonly grown outside Chile these days, and this delightful wine is well worth a taste. For a moderate budget Carmenere, try the Vina Von Siebenthal Reserva from the Aconcagua Valley.
It’s very easy to do your own wine tasting trip from Santiago, although it’s probably easier to go on an organised tour so you don’t have to worry about drink driving.
Another alcoholic beverage that is essential to try whilst in Chile is the pisco sour. Chile and Peru may go to war to dispute the origin of the pisco sour, and it’s easy to see why. This drink is very very yummy and it can be delightfully potent. I could develop a major addiction to pisco sours! The drink is light green in colour and a combination of grape brandy and the juice of miniature limes. The Chileans also drink the grape brandy with coke which is called a piscola.
Beers have to compete hard in Chile considering the quality of the wine and the pisco sours. For a nice local beer, try the Torobayo Cerveza. Salud.
