Food or: How I Learned to Stop Being Picky and Love the Opportunities

To those of you who get the terribly forced reference in the title of this post, congratulations.  To those of you who don't, go watch Dr. Strangelove.

But on a more serious note, there's not been nearly as dramatic a shift in my eating habits as the title implies.  I'm just trying to be funny and not succeeding.  What is true is that I've made it a point to eat everything that's been served to me here, so as to be a good, respectful, and polite host son.  Of course, just as there are things I could have gone without trying, there are things that have been intriguing, even delicious new courses to try.  I documented some of my meals across the spectrum during my first few weeks here, partially for the sake of documenting them and partially for the sake of proving to you, Mom and Dad, that I really am trying my best in this area.  As such, here's the photo dump:

Torta de choclo ("Chicken...casserole", I guess?  A direct translation doesn't work here.).  It consisted of chicken (duh), eggs, a corn-based top section, and I honestly can't remember what else.  This was from one of the first nights I was here.  I think I've had it one other time since.

I don't remember what this was called (it had a specific name), but it was good.  On the left is chamomile tea (a first for me, as I don't drink tea), and on the right is some sort of almond and chocolate, very yummy cake.

Nothing special about this.  I just find it amusing that this is all I've ever seen chocolate milk in at our place, as I typically associate this format with juice (you know what I'm talking about: Juicy Juice, Hi-C, etc.).  Even regular milk comes in cartons (though much larger, obviously, and without the straw hole).

I don't even really know what this is.  The soup seemed corn-based, but I'm honestly not sure.

Chicken and rice; hard to go wrong with that combo.

So, Mom and Dad, see those massive chunks of potato and sweet potato?  Yeah, I ate those.  For people who don't know this about me, I am NOT a fan of potatoes unless they are in the form of chips or something else small and crispy (like fries, or very crispy hash browns or tater tots); it's something I'd like to change, and it seems like my time here may very well do just that.

On the right, I have another seemingly corn-based soup.  It's kind of bland, frankly, but it's fine other than that.  Perhaps I should start using the salt I'm being given...  Also, that small plate?  That is a mound of shredded...red cabbage, I think it was?  It had an odd flavor; I definitely mixed it with other stuff.

Speaking of red cabbage, it returns here, cooked and in big chunks.  Those carrots are cooked as well.  However, both the carrots and the cabbage are cold.  Owing to the cabbage, food mixing happened again. 

A heaping mound of cold cooked vegetables.  There are even some green beans in here, ugh.

That egg was over-medium or over-easy, probably the latter.  I wouldn't know, since I always have eggs scrambled or in the form of an omelette.  I feel like it would have worked better in a sandwich than on top of soup, but that's just what I've become accustomed to in the States, I suppose.

This beauty was acquired after our day tour of Valparaiso.  I think it actually had two kinds of meat on there (the other being under the cheese), and there's some extra mozzarella sprinkled on there.  YUM. 

This was from our second day in Santiago.  I don't remember what kind of fish it was (in fact, I don't think the menu really specified).  I decided to get the filet with bones, only because it was cheaper.  My parents are probably grinning and shaking their heads right about now.

One of my greatest regrets, as far as food goes, is that I did NOT take a picture of one of the desserts I got here.  They're called sopaipillas, and here in Chile, they're traditionally made on really dreary, rainy days (which is exactly the kind of day I had them on).  Since I didn't take a picture, I'll steal one from the Internet.  Hopefully I'll have them again and can eventually replace it with a picture of my own.  In any case, they're flat, round pieces of fried dough (more or less), and they're heated in and served with some kind of sauce.  The sauce varies depending on who serves it; a bunch of people from my group got them that same day and reported a couple different sauces.  I got the very traditional chancaca sauce.  To use the Wikipedia entry's description of it (which is literally about two sentences), it's a "sweet sauce made of raw unrefined sugar crystallized with honey. It is often flavored with orange peel[.]"  I don't know if my sauce had any orange peel flavoring added in; if so, it was so ingrained in the overall flavor that I didn't notice.  Regardless, they are served hot and are DELICIOUS.  Here's the picture I stole (also from Wikipedia; go figure), which actually works really well because it shows regular sopaipillas and ones in steaming chancaca sauce in the back:

Well, that's it for this post!