Love to Travel Chile

Yum. Love humitas. But, my comment is really more of a question about the picture. How did you get the steam to show up???? Or was that photoshop? In which case the question continues to be how?

Neat blog! I just returned from a trip to Chile. I wish I could have tried Humitas. I’m going back next year with a pack of students, so I’ll try them then.

Humita is a B-side tamale: corn, but no delicious stuffing. In other words, a carb overload with half the flavor. I’m sure you can get tamales many places in the US rather than travel to a different hemisphere to get something half as good.

Where Chile shines is pastel de choclo. Corn…mush? Is that what you’d call it? It’s done at different levels of awesomeness but if you can befriend locals who know their shit you’re in for a treat.

Or go to a fine restaurant. There was actually one picada (not-fine restaurant) where the pastel de choclo was infused with sweet raisins and every slice came with a chicken leg tucked in side it was sweet and savory and absolutely awesome.

Chileans get pretty chauvinistic about their distinctly “Chilean” foods like humitas and empanadas, both of which are done better elsewhere. I think it would make much more sense to scale up the chauvinism on pastel de choclo, where they’ve actually got something, unless I’m unaware of the Peruvians doing it 10x better - I wouldn’t be surprised.

hahaha, poor Chileno, you’ve obviously never had an humita from El Campo. Faaaar superior to any Mexican tamale. But there’s definitely no where in Santiago to get a decent humita, that’s for sure.

Why is it better? I mean you could be right they focus more on the corn mushy part since that’s all their is. In my experience they are pretty flavorful for what they are. But still, no matter how many spices you plunge into your corn froth, too humble to get chauvinistic about.

Chileno, I did get to try pastel de choclo while I was in Chile. When I’m back next year, I’m going to recommend it to each of the students we bring.

Lovetotravelchile’s back at long last..! I thought you were leaving it to die a long, slow internet death.

Anyway, i’m not a great fan of either humitas or pastel de choclo. Not much of a corn man. My favourite Chilean food is a good cazuela. Deep-fried empanadas are also pretty damn tasty, so are normal empanadas de pino when made with proper steak and cooked in an horno de barro.

Here’s my Guide to food in Chile from what seems like years ago.