Vegetarian Chile

If you arrived here in search of that North American favorite, vegetarian chili, you have misgoogled; this is about vegetarian food in Chile. But it might be worth reading further; Chile has an extensive repertory of meatless dishes that fed the upper classes on meatless Fridays and the poor all year round.

The food of the country people is very simple….  most of the time eating vegetables and above all potatoes, beans, peas, wheat and corn boiled like rice or as toasted flour, and on rare cases meat, preferring to sell the animals they raise and never lack.  When it is the hacienda owner who feeds them, they seem to still be in the middle ages for the great uniformity of their food, because it is made up of only a single plate of beans in the north and peas in the south, simply cooked in water or seasoned with a little fat or pork cracklings. This is the diet of all year round, which they prefer and request, feeling that it makes them strong and long suffering for their work, which the results seem to confirm.[1]

Whether the Chilean peasantry’s diet was largely meatless by choice, as Claudio Gay’s 1860s work suggests, or through poverty, as is more likely (note that food for festivals and weddings was not meatless) they developed a large variety of meatless dishes, some now classics of Chile’s Creole cuisine.

The food of the indigenous Mapuche, which blended with colonial Spanish cooking to produce Creole cuisine, was based on maize, potatoes, common and lima beans, squash, and quinoa, along with the meat of domesticated llamas and wild game, fish and shellfish.  Some of today’s popular meatless dishes are direct descendants of Mapuche foods:

Humitas, Chilean tamales (and incidentally the subject of the first post in “Eating Chilean”) continue to be among the 10 most popular Chilean home cooked foods.[2] The original Mapuche humitas were made solely of maize (corn) picked while still in the milky stage, but today’s humitas also include lard, onion and basil, though a vegetarian or vegan version is a simple modification of the recipe in the link above.

Porotos Granados, shell beans cooked with corn and squash, are also among Chileans’ top ten home cooked meals.  Cranberry beans are boiled with a bit of onion.  When within 30 minutes or so of being done, winter squash (zapallo) is added, and when it has cooked soft,  corn cut from the cob is added and cooked for an additional 10 minutes until the stew is thick.  For a more detailed and illustrated recipe, take a look at this one by Chilean Gringa blogger Eileen Smith.  And for a winter version using dry beans and spagetti, there is Porotos con riendas (beans with reins).

Tomatican, another Chilean Creole dish with indigenous origins, is a stew of tomatoes, corn, and onions, which may include meat, lima beans or cochayuyo, eatable kelp. Vegetarian versions are common and have entered the international repertory of meatless dishes.  Here is a recipe from Mooswood Restaurant Cooks at Home.  The version with cochauyo seems not to be available elsewhere in English, so here’s one adapted from Recetas de Cocina.

          Bundled...             and packaged cochayuyo

Incidentally cochayuyo is an excelent addition to meatless cooking of all kinds. types.  In Chile it replaces meat in dishes ranging from stews and soups to pastas to empanadas.  There are several more recipies in English at Seaweed: Cochayuyo and Luche.  It is occasionally available by mail in the US at Amigo Foods or Tu Chile Aquí and in Europe at Cresta Ecologia. 

 

Vegetarianism as a movement, which began in England in 1847[3], seems to have arrived in Chile in the late 19^th century, along with many other European influences.  Der Vegetarier for June 15, 1891:  “Herr Rudolf Franck describes the progress of Vegetarianism in Chili. Though the Valparaiso Society numbers only 12 members, it possesses a library and reading room, but, as yet, no restaurant. The chief reason for this want is the difficulty in finding a manager.”   Three years later “the Valparaiso Vegetarian Society, which was founded in 1889, now counts 25 members, mostly Germans...” [4]

By the 1930s, there were evidently enough Chilean vegetarians to support publication of a cook book, the 1931 Manual of Chilean Vegetarian Cuisine, [5] which, along with many French, Spanish and Italian recipes (pastas, tortillas, vegetable pies and puddings) includes a variety of clearly Chilean dishes: pancurtas (dumplings or noodles for soup), maize chupe (chupes are milk based stews), humitas, stewed hominy, cochayuyo “meatballs,” cochayuyo pudding, fried cochayuyo, stuffed cochayuyo, etc.




Her recipe for Stewed Hominy (mote de maiz guisado) is as follows: 

First pass the maize kernels through clear lye, and when the husks are loose, remove them and boil until cooked, then grind in the machine [food mill], fry in vegetable shortening with a little minced onion and parsley and lighten with milk. To serve, top with two egg yokes, grated cheese and cream, and surround with fried potatoes.

Among those Chilean vegetarians of the 1930s the most famous today is Manuel Lezaeta Acharán, author of La Medicina Natural al Alcance de Todos [6] (Natural Medicine in Reach of Everyone), which by 1989 had been published in 148 editions around the world and was the most-read book of natural medicine in Latin America.

Born in 1881, he entered the University of Chile medical school in 1899, but was forced to drop out because of syphilis and gonorrhea, then incurable. After unsuccessful treatment by numerous conventional physicians, he met German priest and practitioner of hydrotherapy and diet therapy Tadeo de Wiesent, who returned him to health in a few months. Thereafter, completely disillusioned with conventional medicine, he devoted his life to study and practice of natural medicine. He became an attorney and Professor of Spanish and History at the Santiago Institute of Humanities, and traveled through out the Americas promoting his Thermal Doctrine of the Science of Health. [7]

His ten rules for health are:

Breathe pure air.  Eat exclusively natural products.  Be sober constantly.  Only drink plain water.  Be very clean in every way.  Dominate the passions, seeking greater chastity.  Never be idle.  Rest and sleep only as necessary.  Dress simply and with ease, and Cultivate all the virtues, trying to always be happy.

Lezaeta Acharán’s dietary philosophy is based on what he considers to be natural law:

The natural order establishes that the mineral kingdom sustains the vegetal and the vegetal sustains he animal, from which results that ingestion of mineral substances, as are almost all pharmaceutical products, is to introduce extraneous materials into the organism that should not be assimilated and thus need to be eliminated. (p. 7)

Knowledgeable persons… have demonstrated without a doubt, that man is fructivorous that is, that his organism is constituted to feed itself on fruits.  Darwin, Lamark, Haecke, etc. have confirmed that the physiological analog of the man is the fructivorous ape.  (p. 8)

The meat of animals has not been destined to feed man and, more than food, it is a stimulant owing to the toxins that it possesses, among which are creatine, creatinine, cadaverin, etc., which injected into a rabbit in small quantities cause its sudden death. (p. 8)

Many think that a fruit diet is insufficient because shortly after having eaten they feel the need to eat again.  On the other hand a plate of meat or beans or “satisfies” the person for several hours. This is explained because fruits and seeds are digested and assimilated easily without leaving unhealthy residues.  In contrast a piece of meat or a plate of beans require an extended effort that makes the individual feel full for the four hours or more required for digestion, or better said, for “indigestion.” (p. 98)

The diet he recommends is based on fruits, seeds, leaves and roots, and includes limited amounts of whole grain bread, soft cheeses, hard cooked eggs, honey, milk, olives and even wine, but meats, fish and legumes (beans, lentils, etc.) are to be avoided:

Breakfast:  Only raw fruits in season or dry if fresh are not available. Lacking this, a plate of raw oatmeal soaked in water for 20 minutes or more, and sweetened with honey or raisins, figs or bananas. 

Dinner at mid day:  Freely if hungry, preferring salads with olives or chopped hard cooked egg, vegetables in season with nuts, omelets of vegetables mixed with egg, fresh cheese [quesillo] or raw sugar; a little bread is possible if it is whole grain or toasted.  Avoid lunch meats, fried foods, and condiments such as pepper or mustard.

Supper:  If hungry one may eat as in mid day, but in smaller quantities.  Generally a salad or a bit of raw fruit will be sufficient.  Eat slowly and deliberately to generate abundant saliva. Avoid sweets, conserves, milk, aged cheese, soft cooked eggs, and meat broths.  Don’t smoke. (p. 181)

Lezaeta Acharán’s teachings continue to be followed in Latin America and Santiago’s Villa de Vida Natural [8] includes a spa, hotel and restaurant with reasonable prices for meals and stays of one to 10 days.  Other Villas exist in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and perhaps elsewhere. 

In spite of Lezaeta Acharán’s fame, vegetarians remain a distinct minority in Chile, where annual per capita meat consumption is now over 81 kg. (just under ½ lb. per day), but meatless meals continue to be a regular part of many households’ diets.  Recipes in the most recent (April, 2011) edition of Chile’s major food magazine, Paula Cocina are almost all meatless (presumably for Lent), and my wife’s family has always had occasional meatless dinners; usually once a week or more. 

Our most popular meatless dishes are tortillas, Spanish style omelets, and vegetable tarts or pies; both of which I learned from my wife.

Tortilla Española

Tortillas are literally “little cakes” a term the Spanish applied to the Mexican maize bread, the Aztecs called taxcal, and to little breads or cakes most everywhere.  But this tortilla is a mixture of eggs and vegetables (sometimes meats are added) eaten as a main course or cut into small pieces as appetizers or tapas. Serve hot or at room temperature.

The classic Spanish tortilla contains potatoes and onions, but an infinity of tortilla varieties are popular in Spain and in here in Chile as well.

The basic procedure is to precook the vegetables, season with salt and pepper, mix with beaten eggs and allow to soak for a few minutes.  The mixture is then poured into a hot, well-oiled skilled and cooked slowly until about ¾ set.  The tortilla is then turned over (here’s how) and cooked a few minutes more, until the center is set but still moist.

Tortilla de porotos verdes (green beans)

The classic Spanish tortilla of potatoes and onions calls for the vegetables to be simmered in olive oil until cooked, but not brown, then drained and added to the eggs.  For a slightly less caloric version parboil the thinly sliced potatoes for a few minutes instead of frying.  Green beans, another family favorite, are also best parboiled, as are broccoli, cauliflower, etc., but spinach, zucchini, chard, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, eggplant, etc. are best sautéed in olive oil along with a few sliced onions.  Very wet vegetables like spinach, chard, tomatoes and zucchini should be drained or squeezed to remove most of their liquids.  A tablespoon or two of flour added to the eggs is also a good idea with many fillings to prevent watery tortillas.  And while not traditional, cheese also makes a good addition.

Some of our favorites are spinach and onion, French cut green beans with mushrooms, sliced zucchini with red bell peppers, potatoes with bell peppers, caramelized onions, and so on.  And of course a tortilla is a great way to use leftovers.  Do you have leftover rice, Brussels sprouts and winter squash?  Make a tortilla.

Another favorite is a vegetable pie, a pastel de verduras, like my wife’s green bean, onion and mushroom tart below.

The procedure is to make a pie crust, then parboil the beans and sauté the mushrooms and onions.  Mix with blanched green beans and moisten with cream (½ cup or so), fill the crust and top with a lattice of pie dough.  Bake in a moderate oven until the crust is brown.  Spinach or chard also makes a good filling.    

Vegetarian restaurants and products

Santiago is not Portland (said be the US’s most veggie friendly city), but there are a few vegetarian restaurants; tofu, quinoa, textured soy protein, and a wide variety of grains and legumes are available if you know were to look; and there are fresh fruits and vegetables in great variety and low cost in ferias, “farmer’s markets."  On the other hand, non-vegetarian restaurants (except Chinese restaurants) seldom have main dishes without meat or seafood, and most shortening and margarines contain fish or animal fats, so breads and pastries are suspect. 

Links:

“The Vegetarian Endeavor in Santiago” in Revolver Magazine has restaurant reviews.

Reinaldo’s blog: Tiendas de comidas vegetarianas (Stores with vegetarian foods)

Cocina del mercado A blog on vegetarian cooking and recipes by the chef/owner of one of Santiago’s best known Vegetarian restaurants—in Spanish.

Chile Forum:  Food in Chile. An English language forum with a search function where you can search for (and find!) where to buy tofu, soy milk, etc.

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[1] Gay, Claudio. 1862-1865.  Agricultura, Tomo 2. París: En casa del autor; Chile: Museo de Historia Natural de Santiago, p. 161. On line at http://www.memoriachilena.cl/temas/documentodetalle.asp?id=MC0002688

[2] Terra, Blog Gouyr.net.  El Terremoto se quedó con el premio Bicentenario.  2010-03-26.  On line at http://www.terra.cl/gournet/index.cfm?pagina=blog_comentario&idpost=16733&idblog=16&titulo_url=El_Terremoto_se_quedo_con_el_premio_Bicentenario

[3]  The Modern Vegetarian Movement. How Vegetarians Work. On line at http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/vegetarian2.htm

[4] History of Chile Vegetarian Societies, international Vegetarian Union on line at http://www.ivu.org/history/societies/chile.html

[5] Vergara Díaz, Lucía. 1  931. Manual de cocina vegetariana chilena. Santiago: Impr. Gutenberg, selected chapters on line at http://www.memoriachilena.cl//temas/dest.asp?id=manualdecocinavegetarianachilena

[6] Lezaeta Acharan, Manuel. 1997.  Medicina natural al alcance de todos, 2nd Edition.  Mexico, D.F.: Editorial Pax.  On line at Google books

[7] Manuel Lezaeta Acharán. Wikipedia Español.  On line at http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Lezaeta_Achar%C3%A1n

[8] Villa De Vida Natural “Manuel Lezaeta Acharan”, Tomas Moro 261, Las Condes. Telefonos 716 3250

Eating Caribbean - Cartagena de Indias, Colombia

If you read this blog regularly you know that I occasionally drift off subject to report on vacation food. This time it’s for the cuisine of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, where we spent a week this March.     

Cartagena de Indias, so named to avoid confusion with its Spanish namesake, is on the Caribbean coast of Colombia where its tropical climate, Afro-Latino population and cuisine are similar to those of other Caribbean societies—but with some distinct local touches.  

 Where to begin?  With the characteristic dish of Cartagena, of course: fried fish, coconut rice, patacones and salad.  Every Cartagena Creole restaurant serves it, sometimes under the name Plato Costeño (Coastal Plate) or Bandeja Tipica Caribeña (Typical Caribbean Tray), and at lunch time throughout the old city street vendors are eating the same dish out of Styrofoam boxes.

Pargo (red snapper) with Creole sauce, coconut rice and patacone

 Trentis Restaurante, Calle Sargento Mayor

The fish, usually plate size or smaller, is slashed on each side, then deep fried with no breading or batter. Preferred fish are pargo (red snapper), robalo (snook) and mojarra, but any small white-flesh fish or filet of a larger fish seems acceptable. We even had one (forgettable) Bandeja Tipica on a tour where the fish was frozen merluza, hake.  

Mojarra frita, D’Alex Restaurante,

 Plaza Fernando de Madrid

And its a great spot for an evening beer.

Coconut rice, arroz con coco, is rice cooked in coconut milk; not the liquid from inside green coconuts, but the “milk” made by adding hot water to grated coconut meat and squeezing out the creamy liquid. Canned unsweetened coconut milk can also be used.

Recipes from The Cuisine of Cartagena de Indias[1]

And patacones?  Fried rounds of green plantains, called tostones in other parts of the Caribbean.

Shrimp, locally called langostinos or camarones, are also a favorite menu item.  At left are fried langostinos over a mound of mashed plantain (similar to Puerto Rican mofongo) with a sauce of sweet corzo, a palm fruit.

Left Langostinos from Cafe Krioyo

Sweet sauces are also prominent in Cartagena’s meat cuisine.  Posta Negra Cartagenera (Cartagena pot roast) is a classic:  rump roast braised in a dark sweet sauce which may (or may not) include tomatoes, red wine, Seville orange juice, red soda pop and/or soy sauce.

Posta Negra Cartagenera, Café Krioyo

A Google search finds a dozen or so recipes, all in colloquial Colombian Spanish… and all different.  I’ve translated a simple one below from Colombia en la mesa. (Note that tropical beef needs the moist intense heat of a pressure cooker, but you can also braise it for 3 ½ hours or so, or use a slow cooker.) 

Pork is also served with sweet fruit based sauces.  One evening I had pork ribs braised in beer and tamarind sauce, the headline dish on the menu of La Cocina de Carmela, a neighborhood one-waitress-one-cook, chalkboard-menu restaurant with an interesting blend of Caribbean and international dishes.   It’s not self service, in spite of the sign, and the food makes up for the décor.

  

La Cocina de Carmela, Calle de Badillo

And, of course, Cartegana fruit is always available from street vendors, with tomatoes, peppers, pineapples, mangoes, papayas, plums, passion fruit and even marañón or cashew apple, the yellow fruit at left with the cashew on the end.

But for the real Cartagena fruit experience, have a fruit salad from one of the handsome Palenqueras, among the most photographed women in the world.

  

Doña Angeilna

For more about Cartagena, see my travel blog.

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[1] Román de Zurek, Teresita and Estella Arango de Morales Angel De M. 2001 The Cuisine of Cartagena de Indias: Legacy of the Spanish Cooking in Colombia. p.100 & 130. Ediciones Gama, S.A.  on line at http://books.google.com

Chilean Cheese

It is difficult to start a post about Chilean cheese without invoking the old saw about France having one religion and 100 kinds of Cheese while England has 100 religions and only one kind of cheese… but I will restrain myself.  Chile has four major kinds of cheese:  queso mantecoso or Chanco, buttery cheese; queso fresco or quesillo, farmers’ cheese; queso de cabra, goat milk cheese; and “gauda” an industrial cheese that usually comes sliced.  (...and one religion.)

   

Quesillo and queso mantecoso.

Queso Chanco

The cheese from Chanco is exported along the entire coast and is preferred by aficionados for its excellent taste.  It is very buttery and always sells for a higher price than the rest. In the countryside they are content to get a little dry rennet from a cow’s innards and dissolve it in water and this is used to coagulate the milk. The curd is placed in a wooden mold and is well pressed to squeeze out the whey, and then salt is added and it is pressed for another day and then left to dry.  Claudio Gay 1860s[1]

Queso Chanco, now a generic term interchangeable with Chilean queso mantecoso (“buttery cheese”) produced anywhere in Chile, continues to be preferred by aficionados. It is an excellent cheese, mild tasting, soft but firm enough to slice.  And it melts beautifully.  It is similar to American supermarket Munster in texture and to some degree, in taste.

Queso mantecoso is produced by cheese makers of all levels, from fully industrialized processors like COLÚN and Soprole, that together produce almost 60% of Chilean cheese (other than farmers’ cheese)[2]; to authorized gourmet artisanal producers like Puile, producer of 5,800 kg of cheese a year;[3] to small farmers who make a few kg. a week from the raw milk of their own cows using traditional methods like those Gay recorded in the 1860s.

The chanco cheese most Chileans buy is, of course, from the industrial processors whose cheese is sold in supermarkets.  Supermarket queso mantecoso sells from around 4,000 to 6,000 Chilean pesos a kilo ($3.75 to 5.75/lb.) and on any given day, one brand may be more and another less expensive.  If you prefer your cheese to be a little sharper—although none will be very sharp—choose the least expensive:  it is likely to be older and nearer its expiration date.[4]

In a 2005 blind tasting of these cheeses three judges from the Circle of Chilean Food Writers (Círculo de Cronistas Gastronómicos de Chile) considered “aroma, glossy appearance, presence of abundant eyes [holes] and of course, intense and complex taste in the mouth: salty, slightly acid, also sweet, and hopefully, the characteristic taste of herbs that good milk has.  And soft texture, very soft.”  The best “attack the nose with a delicious buttery elegance; melt in the mouth with sweet, acid and intense tastes of milk and of the country.  Unfortunately all are industrial cheeses…, but some are very good; really notable.”[5]

Farm cheese vendor, Temuco market

To my taste the farm cheeses are better, but perhaps that’s just from knowing that they are made by farmers rather than corporations.  When we go to the Chilean lakes district I by cheese from small merchants in Pucón or Temuco, or from the ladies selling cheese along side their eggs and produce on the street corners. Some are flavored with merkin, smoked chilies ground with colander, or with oregano.  There is a certain risk involved; these cheeses are made from raw milk under hygienic conditions that leave much to be desired, but it’s a risk that I’m willing to take.  They are really good cheeses (but see below “Safety and artisanal farm cheese”). 

Quesillo or queso fresco – Farmer’s Cheese

Quesillo is a simple fresh cheese made from cow’s milk (from full fat to skim), rennet and a little salt.   It is silky smooth, just firm enough to slice or cut into cubes, and with a clean, fresh, mildly acidic taste, similar to cottage cheese, but much better since it has much less salt, and no preservatives, flavorings, sugars, gums, colorants, etc. (Cottage cheese has a bunch.[6])  We eat it at breakfast, as an appetizer, in salads (especially layered with slices of tomato and basil leaves), on sandwiches, and in place of ricotta in lasagna and similar dishes.

 It is widely available in supermarkets (67% made by Soprole) but can also be made at home.  Chilean-American blogger Pilar has an illustrated recipe for Quesillo Chileno.  

Photo Querida Comida

Queso de Cabra – Goat milk cheese

Photo: Ellen Nas

Chilean goat milk cheese is made by nationally known industrial producers like Quillayes, by gourmet artisanal producers like Quesos Arturito, and by hundreds (thousands?) of small family producers.  The industrial and gourmet artisanal varieties are usually semi hard.  Quillayes describes theirs as having “smooth texture and intense aromatic flavor.”  They are similar to feta (which is very difficult to find in Chile) and make a good substitute for it.

Chilean farm goat milk cheese is a semi soft cheese, with low acidity and mild flavor.  It is usually made by family producers from the Santiago area north into the norte chico, from the unpasteurized milk of their own goats.  Following an outbreak of food poising in Santiago in 1990, public health regulations were imposed on cheese production. As explained by American anthropologist William Alexander: 

The law requires that all sites of cheese production have potable water, hygienic services for workers, sterilized equipment, special corrals with concrete floors or milking rooms where goats are milked one at a time on platforms away from animal feces, and clean rooms where cheese is pressed and set out to mature. Families who have been making and selling this product for generations milk their animals in their corrals, press the cheese into hoops by hand in their kitchens, and leave it on shelves in cool, dry rooms in their houses, most of which have neither running water or electricity.[7]

Several cooperative cheese factories, meeting these regulations, have been set up in the norte chico, but most farm goat cheese producers continue to make cheese under traditional (unhygienic) conditions. Alexander says that cheese vendors on the roadsides of the Pan-American highway, Ruta 5 (and presumably other public locations) are inspected regularly and sell only cheese from registered makers, but a great percentage of farm goat cheese is made by unregistered producers. 

In the Santiago area goat cheese is available from artisanal producers in the cajon del maypo in the mountains south east of the city. It is delicious cheese, usually only a day or two old, thought the flavor improves with a week or so in the refrigerator. 

 

Photos: Ellen Nas 

 

Safety and artisanal farm cheese

Although the artisanal farm cheese makers I have met seem careful about cleanliness, their cheese is produced under potentially unhygienic conditions, and there is some risk in eating it.  

The most serious risk is brucellosis, a chronic disease which may persist for life, but which is rare in Chile, with frequencies similar to those of the United States (Chile has .06 cases per million population; the US .04/million[8].) Less serious food borne illness, with symptoms like intestinal flu, usually lasting a few hours to several days, may be caused by wide variety of bacteria that may contaminate cheese.[9]

Chilean studies of artisanal farm goat milk cheese making in the late 1980s found:

…serious sanitary defects in all the cheese making process, although the major contamination occurred during milking, followed by the process of cutting the curd and filling the moulds in which there is excessive manipulation and a complete lack of hygiene. While no Brucella melitensisI bacteria were found in the goat milk, the food poisoning associated with cheese consumption is attributed to a toxin produced by Staphylococcus aureusI and the significant load of fecal coliform bacteria encountered. [10]

Your perception of the risk-benefit ratio of farm artisanal cheese may be different from mine (and should be, if you are very young, very old, have reduced immunities, or really hate the likely symptoms), but we buy and enjoy farm goat cheese a few times a year and have been lucky: no illness.  Alexander writes: 

In the countryside, everyone eats it. In the city, those coming from a rural background or with family in the country were often enthusiastic about its cheese. This enthusiasm sometimes seemed like a badge of honor showing their support for the crianceros [goat herders] in the controversy [over the regulations]. Others who identify themselves as urbanized and "modern" may only buy the factory variety of handcrafted cheese sold in the supermarket. (For my firmly middle-class 80-year-old landlady in the city the cheese I brought in from the countryside was a guilty pleasure. She believed the risks as reported in the media, but could not resist eating it from time to time and she found my interest in it to be amusing.)[11] 

Gauda or gouda type cheese, Chile’s most popular

Chilean gauda is an industrial cheese, usually sold sliced in supermarkets or in large blocks to restaurants or food processors. It is the cheese of sandwiches, fast food, frozen pizza, mass produced empanadas, etc., filling the role that processed “American cheese” does in the USA. Gauda comprised 70% of the cheese sold in Chile in 2004.  At that time Chile’s annual per capita cheese consumption was about 4 kg., compared to over 14 kg. in the US,[12] but consumption is rising in both countries, as cheese is a major ingredient in fast food; cheeseburgers and the like.

According to a Chilean urban myth, it is made of potatoes, but an expert on the Chilean cheese industry explained that “what happens is that gouda is an acid cheese, with a lot of humidity, and this texture feels like that of potato starch, but it really isn’t.”[13]

I think that means that gauda isn't made from potatoes; it just tastes like it might be. It's not terrible, and it's real cheese with no added ingredients, not processed cheese, "cheese product," or "cheese food" like some American counterparts.   But its similarity to gouda from the Netherlands is very remote.  

Other Cheese in Chile

In addition to these cheeses, there is hard cheese sold as queso parmesano and queso reggianito, grated and in pieces: the reggianito is pretty good.  There is also Chilean industrial cheese sold as Edam, gruyere, “tipo roquefort,” camembert, brie, provoleta, etc.; as well as gourmet artisanal cow, goat, and sheep milk cheese.  And there are imported cheeses from the US and the EU, as well as from Argentina and Brazil. Still, some cheeses are difficult to find, especially sharp cheeses which are not generally to Chilean tastes: feta, sharp cheddar, etc. (2014 Update: Sheep milk feta from Quesos Boladero is available at Sabores del Sur, Pres. Battle y Ordoñez 3635, Ñuñoa, Santiago.)

A few specialty cheese shops in Santiago are said to have good variety and quality.  Quesería Huelmo is a traditional shop located at Jaime Guzmán #3090, Providencia, Santiago that has an excellent reputation.  When an interviewer asked if the owner, Yolanda Gallardo, was interested in transforming her business into a “gourmet store,” she answered:  “I don’t have anything against those stores, they are very pretty and everything, but we are a more of a neighborhood store that for all its life has worked with artisanal products.” [14]

Another store with a good selection is El Mundo de Quesos, at Nueva de Lyon 36, Local 21, Providencia, Santiago.

And for sharp cheese it is worth asking the cheese vendors in La Vega if they have any queso añejo, "aged cheese." It may be a cheese that was too sharp to sell to their regular customers and has been waiting for a discerning buyer like you.

Photos: Loogares.com

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[1] Gay, Claudio. 1862-1865.  Agricultura, Tomo 1. París: En casa del autor; Chile: Museo de Historia Natural de Santiago, p. 442. On line at http://www.memoriachilena.cl/temas/documentodetalle.asp?id=MC0002688

[2] Situación del Mercado de queso en Chile. Leche y lácteos. Oficina de Estudios y Políticas Agrarias.  On line at http://www.odepa.gob.cl/servlet/articulos.ServletMostrarDetalle;jsessionid=F9C194B0BDF9ACF5130E0F4A2C6C3ADC?idcla=2&idcat=7&idclase=99&idn=1670&volver=1

[3] Lorca, Elisa Barría. (Nov. 17) 200. Quesos Puile: sabor y tradición campesina en San José de la Mariquina.  Portal INDAP. On line at http://www.indap.gob.cl/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=413

[4] Merino, Augusto. 2008. Los quesos chilenos. Revista Vinos & mas.  On line at Cículo de Cronistas Gastronómicos, http://www.cronistas.cl/articulo134_Los_quesos.html

[5] Fredes, César. Queso mantecoso, los diez mejores de Chile. La Nacion.Cl. August 14, 2005. On line at http://www.lanacion.cl/prontus_noticias/site/artic/20050813/pags/20050813172554.html

The 10 top cheeses in the tasting were: 1. Los Tilos. 2. Pahuilmo. 3. Puerto Octay. 4. Los Monjes. 5. Las Pircas. 6. Cuinco. 7. Los Hornos. 8. Santa Matilde. 9. Don Leo. 10. Las Águilas.[6] Bareman’s Low Fat Cottage Cheese ingredients:  Cultured Fat Free Milk, Buttermilk, Nonfat Dry Milk, Cream, Salt, Citric Acid, Lactic Acid, Phosphoric Acid, Natural Flavoring, Guar Gum Mono and Diglycerides, Xanthan Gum, Carob Bean Gum, Titanium, Dioxide(artificial color), Maltodextrin, Cultured dextrose, Postassium Sorbate, Calcium Chloride, Enzymes.  On line at  http://baremandairy.com/lowfatcottagecheese.pdf. Some Chilean quesillo has gelatin added; avoid it.

[7] Alexander, William L.  2004. Clandestine Artisans or Integrated Producers?: Standardization of Rural Livelihood in the Norte Chico, Chile. CULTURE & AGRICULTURE 26(1-2-March):38–51.

[8]Pappas, Georgias, et. al. 2006. The new global map of human brucellosis. Lancet Infect Dis 6: 91–99.  On line at http://agronica.udea.edu.co/talleres/Medicina/Prof%20Nicolas%20%20Ram%C3%ADrez/reyes/The_new_global_map_of_human_brucellosis_.pdf

[9] About food poisoning. Virgina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. On line at http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/foodsafety/poisoning.shtml

[10] Camacho, Lavinia & Cecilia Sierra. 1988.  Diagnostico sanitarion y technologio del proceso artisanal del queso fresco de cabra en Chile. Archivos latinoamericanos de nutricion. 38(4):935-945.

[11] Alexander, op. cit.

[12] El Mercado de los Lácteos in EE.UU. bUSiness Chile. On line at http://www.businesschile.cl/imprimir.php?w=old&lan=es&id=237

[13] CNN Quesos: "En Chile hay mucha variedad y hay que experimentarla" Santiago,  June 2010. On line at http://www.cnnchile.com/economia/2010/06/20/quesos-en-chile-hay-mucha-variedad-y-hay-que-experimentarla/

[14] La picada de quesos y cecinas artesanales en pleno Providencia. Las Ultimas Noticias On line at http://www.lun.com/lunmobile/Pages/NewsDetailMobile.aspx?dt=2010-06-21&BodyId=0&PaginaID=6&NewsID=9784&Name=I3&PagNum=0&Return=R&SupplementId=3

[15] Schmidt-Hebbel, H, I Pennacchiotti MTabla de Composición Química de Alimentos Chilenos, , Facultad de Ciencias Químicas y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, 7th ed 1985* 61 pp. On line at http://mazinger.sisib.uchile.cl/repositorio/lb/ciencias_quimicas_y_farmaceuticas/schmidth03/parte02/tabla%20cont.1.html