Northern Flavors

Toasted Chañar Seeds

 1) Chañar 
It's hard not to notice promotional signs for chañar pie, chañar ice cream, and chañar syrup when walking around the town of San Pedro de Atacama.  The syrup is honey-like in consistency and often used to treat illnesses or coughs.  After splitting a tasty slice of chañar pie, Matt and I couldn't quite pinpoint the flavor- the pie was loaded with manjar, walnuts, and frosting so it was hard to discern any unique/new flavor that could be attributed to the special ingredient.  So, we jumped at the opportunity when we saw a bag of the plain toasted seeds.  

They are about the size of chestnuts.  You cannot eat the outer skin, or the tiny seed inside, but the "meat" between the two is hard and sweet with a caramel flavor.  The women who sold them to us told us the best way to try them is to pop them into your mouth whole and let the outer shell dissolve off... this method works well!  At first we attempted to smash the chañar seeds open (think nutcracker approach), however this was pretty useless since the sweet inner part does not easily separate from the shell.

2) Rica Rica

Rica Rica - image from Wikipedia Commons

Rica rica is green shrub with a mint-like flavor.  Bars in the Atacama like to use it in cocktails like pisco sours.  We also found a local brewery that makes a rica rica-flavored beer.

3) Menus and Meals

We were worried it would be extremely expensive to eat in San Pedro. In 2011, a typical 'menu' (a set meal including a starter, a main dish, and sometimes a drink or dessert) was 5 thousand pesos, while in Santiago it was only 2 or 3 thousand. Now a typical menu in Santiago is 5 or even up to 8 thousand pesos. But apparently San Pedro has somehow stayed steady all these years- we saw menus from 4 to 9 thousand, but there are still plenty in the 4-5 thousand range. 

Here in the north, a menu includes 2 courses (entrada y fondo) as opposed to the 1 course + small soup or salad that is more common closer to Santiago. We also think that, as we approach Peru, the food gets tastier and more flavorful. At least, we definitely saw more classic Peruvian dishes like lomo saltado.

The fanciest meal we had was a 9 thousand peso lunch menu, where the entrada- a cold avocado soup with shrimp- came out arranged on a slab of rock, the soup in a narrow cup, with no instructions on how to eat it. 

Karen dipped the shrimp in the 'soup' but Matt preferred them separate.

Our fancy meal was so tasty that we tried to get another nice meal. The restaurant where we had previously bought chañar cake and coffee seemed popular, so we checked it out. Their dinner menu had a puzzling fondo: steak in a "berry" sauce. But we assumed if they put it on their menu, they probably knew what they were doing.

Most Chileans prefer their meat pretty well done, so when we ordered, we asked for ours a little rare, thinking that the chef would err on the side of more cooked. Instead, our steaks came out nearly raw. Karen sent hers back to be cooked more, while half of Matt's was actually cooked, so he didn't realize right away. The berry sauce was a puzzle- it tasted like it belonged on a dessert. It did NOT go well with steak.

Steak and berry sauce