Some interesting things I noticed about the food/eating in Chile (cause obvs. this was going to be a post):

I love my host mom's cooking. She is amazing.

In general all of Chile's food/meals involves pan (bread). Which is great, cause the bread here is amazing. Everything is baked fresh and i think my family goes at least once a day to buy pan. I've even becomes curious what happens to the left over pan at the end of the day, do panaderias throw it out? Because that is internal draining of natural resources.

Bread and toppings make up two meals a day here: Desayuno and Once. For breakfast and dinner there is a basket of bread and every topping and utensil you could ever want. For example, my first breakfast here I was brought a fresh roll toasted with jelly, butter, cream cheese, manjar, ham, a block of cheese, mantecillo, and another creamy cheese spread to choose from. This is basically dinner (once) too.

*sidenote: mantecillo (I think that's what it is called) is this thick jelly mold fruit something. You cut of slabs and it tastes like jelly made that morning. And manjar probably deserves more than a sidenote. It is dulce de leche and caramel, sweeter and Chile's answer to Nutella. That and bread and I could be set for life. I probably eat this at least one a day. And Maya, I tried a churro stuffed with manjar on the street today. You would have thought you'd died and gone to heaven.

Almuerzo is a three or more course meal. Usually a soup, an entree, salad, and dessert. And of of course pan. It will be a miracle if I fit in my clothes when I get back. So far I've had a lot of creamy, quiche like, papas full dishes. The one thing i managed to get across my first night here was how much I love verduras and frutas. So I get feed them all the time or they are added to other dishes. The weird thing is that Chile's agriculture is one its main exports and you can buy cheap fresh fruits and veggies anytime all the time, but you wouldn't know that from their food. All the vegetables are cooked and as far as I know I am the only one in the house who eats fresh fruit with sugar or a syrup.

So I have the sweeter end of the deal as far as food with the host family. Other people in my program have said this have been fed a lot of fried foods or that everything is cooked with oil. The closest I came to complain was on one of my first days here my host mom told me that she had bought pescado frititas (fish sticks basically) for my lunch. I had told her the night before that I love seafood. But it worked out fine I told her I preferred fresh fish and it wasn't a problem.

What I've just recently noticed is how people eat here. Nic it would kill you to eat at a dinner table here. There are utensils for everything. There are at least three different knifes on the table, your own and at least two to cut the bread. Each bread topping has a special serving utensil. My sister laughed at me when I asked for a fork for the dessert, because obviously you'd want to eat it with a chucarita (small spoon).

But what's even more interesting is how they eat. I didn't realize it until yesterday but everyone's fork is in their left hand. Everything gets cut with their right and then use their knife to creat some spork action to get the food on their fork and then they eat. They never switch hands/utensils. And a fork would never be used as a knife. Eating is like an active sport.

I haven't really eaten out to much yet, so I haven't tried the local fav, Chorrillana, yet. But I will sometime soon. Street and restaurant food are definitely different than home cooked meals, but I'll try to fit them in soon.