September 17, 2012

Mayo: Chile's unofficial food

I've made two important discoveries since landing in Chile 5 days ago: inexpensive, delicious wine is abundant, and Chileans eat mayonnaise on EVERYTHING.

Actually, it's more like they eat mayo with a side of food. My first experience with this was in the colorful, hilly town of Valparaiso, where I had a completos - a hot dog that must have been made of D-grade bologna smothered with sauerkraut, avocado, and a metric ton of mayonnaise.

Completos are extremely popular in Chile, but I'm going to stick with empanadas from now on. But they probably put mayo on those, too.

Just before leaving Valparaiso, my friends and I found ourselves at a drinking establishment around lunchtime. We hadn't had anything to drink since our Americanos at breakfast, so we went for Cristal lagers (water? Who needs that?). The joint, Cinzanos, seemed like a perfectly fine place to stay and eat, so I ordered shrimp with avocado, and Jason and Janie both ordered pork roll sandwiches.

The monstrosity below is what was placed in front of me. Somewhere underneath all that mayo is half an avocado and some shrimp. If you can spot any of it, then you have superhuman vision.

But my mayo-bomb was a far better choice than The Insult to Pork that was served to Jason and Janie. They ended up with a reject piece of gristly pig wrapped in pork fat. I'm not sure if mayo would have helped it or not.

3 comments:

  1. While Guatemala had some of this epidemic, it appears Chile wins the over-mayo'ing battle.

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  2. I think I'm scarred for life. Hellmann's is dead to me.

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