Chilean Cuisine

Chilean cuisine stretches across the longest, narrowest country on Earth, from the Atacama Desert in the north to Patagonian glaciers in the south, with the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean defining its culinary geography. The Mapuche people, who resisted both Inca and Spanish conquest, cultivated potatoes, corn, quinoa, and beans, and their culinary heritage persists in southern Chilean cooking. Spanish colonization from the sixteenth century introduced wheat, beef, Mediterranean fruits, and wine-making traditions that merged with indigenous ingredients. German immigration to the Lake District in the nineteenth century brought kuchen (cakes), sausage-making, and brewing traditions.

Croatian immigrants influenced Patagonian cooking. British mining interests introduced tea-time culture (once, Chile's beloved afternoon tea with bread and sweets). French culinary influence shaped fine dining.

The result is a cuisine that feels simultaneously South American and surprisingly European. Merken (Mapuche smoked chili flakes), pebre (fresh salsa of cilantro, onion, garlic, and chili), Chilean wine, seafood (from the world's longest coastline), and avocado (palta, used with abandon).