Having alluded to a forthcoming “all the foods I ate” post for close to a year now, I figure it’s about time to ante up.  And so I present this picture-heavy display of various cuisines I was cognizant enough to take pictures of while abroad.  It’s far from complete and woefully lacking in description and character, but, as always, is better than nothing.

Peru

My time in Peru was divided between kooky “jungle medicine” tours in January and my Machu Picchu adventures in June.   Since food from the earlier trip was covered in this post, I’ll only cover the latter delectables here.

Alpaca.  Like its cousin, the llama, these South American beasts of burden are used as pack animals, tourist attractions (Peruvians love to dress them up in brightly colored clothes and then ask for money after you take a picture of one) and, of course, food.  They’re surprisingly good, too, and not nearly as tough as I would’ve guessed.

Alpaca with a side of... well, I'm not certain what this was, but it was vaguely reminiscent of grits.

In Lima, I decided to give cuy (guinea pig) a second chance. The results? It's still as worthless a meal as I found it before. Not bad, per se, but so much effort and mess for about four bites worth of meat. What's the point?

Rocoto Relleno. Stuffed peppers. A popular dish in the south of Peru, though this was a particularly fancy version as it's from Cuzco and marketed to tourists.

Rice pudding with raisins from a street vendor. The woman had a cart with four different flavors that I couldn't tell the difference between. Warm and tasty, though as with most street food down here, it'd never pass a US health inspection

Chile

I didn’t grab many shots of Chilean food.  Santiago had many seafood restaurants, though I couldn’t find sea bass anywhere.  Also, I really don’t much care for fish, so these restaurants did nothing for me.  Combined with the fact that Chile was the most expensive country I visited in South America, I didn’t eat out very much.

The restaurant informed us that this was a traditional Easter Island soup. Not bad, but nothing special

Ecuador

Food from Ecuador was also mostly covered here, but I’ve got a few additions.

Sugarcane juice. These machines take a stalk of cane, run it through and then dump out the excessively sweet (shouldn't be surprising) juice. It's also possible to just buy a stick of surgarcane and chew on it for a bit, if that's your thing...

One of the main food attractions of Banos is the toffee, even though I've never met anyone that likes it. This toffee is made by repeatedly pulling at it from a metal pole affixed to the wall (as seen in the background), then wrapping the pulled toffee around said pole and pulling again until it reaches the desired consistency. This open-air-dirty-pole method likely wouldn't work in the states.

Brazil

As popular and enjoyable as Brazilian barbecue restaurants are in the states, I wasn’t overly impressed with Brazilian food.  Maybe we went to the wrong places.  My friend Jaimee joined me for much of these spots and we had similar lackluster reactions to the country’s offerings.  We visited one steakhouse that, like its US counterpart, involved serving men roaming about with a wide variety of all-you-can-eat meat to slice for their patrons, all with several buffet style tables of fresh food in the background.  It was good, but bore little difference from what one would expect at similar restaurants in the states.

A popular local delicacy that I never quite figured out was manioc, a powdered form of cassava root that, throughout Brazil, is served with slivers of beef jerky.  This side can be found served with almost any meal in Rio.  Despite its ubiquity, we found it fairly bland and pointless, like eating bits from the bottom of a jerky bag that had been dropped into sawdust.  Meh.

Top of the list in Brazil was the açaí (pronounced “ah-sah-EEE”) smoothie.  Mixed with bananas, ice and sugar (apparently the fruit is, by itself, quite bland), this densely blue drink is both energizing and uniquely flavorful.  I made a point of having at least one of these daily.

Pastels (pronounced, in that bizarrely Portuguese way, as "pahs-TEY-ees"), are the Brazilian equivalent of empanadas. Unlike their baked Argentinian equivalent, these are larger and often deep fried. In addition to the standard chicken and ground beef flavors, "pizza"-filled is an option in many places, and not too bad

Crepe on a stick, filled with thick pockets of dulce de leche caramel and then covered in chocolate. We found this one at a random beachside stand between Sao Paolo and Rio.

Coconut water. Jaimee's favorite. Vendors were located everywhere with large coconuts on ice. Upon ordering one, they would use a machete to open it, then serve the beverage with a straw.

Steak, pineapple, sweet potato puree and, at bottom, manioc with jerky

Açaí berries with a glass of the puree on the side (pic not mine)

Nearly everything is available on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, including a wide selection of food. This vendor carries a small cooler of cheese and a small over to bake said cheese, which is eventually removed and passed over on a stick

Uruguay

I only visited Uruguay for about three days, and the food wasn’t terribly different from what we found across the river in Argentina.  One treat that we were told was Uruguayan in nature was Clerico. Much like its red sangria cousin, clerico is a white-wine based fruit punch served with an ample supply of fruit.  My mother’s not much of a drinker, but she was so taken with it that we ordered two pitchers.  From a recipe online:

Clerico, with mother in background

And the winner is…

Argentina

(pic not mine) Argentinian style pizza. It's more common to have cheese, like the right half. Dough is excessively bready, for my tastes, and every slice gets a single olive.

The cuisine of Argentina is, much like its urban architecture, more heavily influenced by Spanish, Italian and French culture than anywhere else on the continent.  For instance, no breakfast is complete without medialunas (literally: half moons), the Argentinian name for croissants.  Breakfast is meant to be simple and light, to the point where those seeking fare more substantial than the standard coffee, orange juice and medialunas are generally out of luck.  Ham and cheese sandwiches are also fairly popular for breakfast, though for some reason no one believes in making these with more than a single slice each of ham and cheese, regardless of the thickness of the bread.

Brazil, the -guays, Chile and Argentina all have variations of the empanada (Note: there is no tilde over the ‘n’ and thus these are pronounced em-puh-nah-duh, and not “em-pan-yah-duh” as I mistakenly said for the first week or two that I lived here), for which I am thankful.  The doughy half-circles are sold with a wide variety of different stuffings in the middle.  Ground beef is typically my favorite when selecting one of the quick, warm mid-day snacks, though another variety includes a densely starchy corn pudding that’s also quite good.  Most vendors sell chicken varieties as well, but empanada de pollo always ends up tasting a bit dry.  There seems to be an unspoken rule that the dough that wraps each different filling be folded in a specific way to make the varieties more recognizable.

Rounding out the fast food selections is a wide sampling of standard sandwich fare.  Like anywhere else on this continent, hamburguesas are widely popular, as are “hot dogs” (that’s how they’re called here as well).  However, why one would go for a simple hot dog when choripan are available, I’m not sure.  From “chorizo“, the insanely good Argentinian beef sausage and “pan” for bread, this sandwich slices a massive chorizo down the center, coats it chimmichurri (a spice rack’s worth of different seasonings all in an oil and vinegar base) and serves it on a fresh French roll.  There’s a reason why there are so few American fast food restaurants here — they’re unnecessary.  Of all the countries, I think Argentina had my favorite street food.

A variety of empanadas, filled with beef, chicken, egg, onions, tuna, cheese and other fun ingredients

As fun to make as they are to eat

My friend Nicole displays an Argentinian hot dog with one of the more popular condiments here: potato chips

A choripan covered in chimichurri sauce. These epic sandwiches still make my mouth water and typically go for no more than $1.50

My attempt at making chimichurri. This attempt yielded incredibly tasty results, but it was closer to a salsa than a chimichurri. Still, as I had plenty of corn chips, this mistake wasn't much of a problem.

All of these are merely lead-ins, of course, to Argentina’s most famous of coronary-inducing main courses.  No, not red wine, though there’s plenty of that to be found here on the cheap as well.  I’m talking, of course, about steak.  Massive, bloody, succulent, affordable steak.  How affordable, you ask?  Well, this massive cut of tenderloin that I used to make about seven large cuts cost me the equivalent of four US dollars:

Yeah.  I miss that.  Parillas are Argentinian barbecue restaurants, and typically you can find several on the block of any busy street.  Restaurants like these specialize in meats, typically served with a side of meats and your choice of two additional meats.  Sometimes, these meals come with a small side salad, though it should be noted that the salad is made entirely of meat as well.  In short, Argentinians like their meat, and tend to order a large platter brought out to the table on a hot plate (often with a compartment for hot coal kept underneath to keep the food warm throughout dinner) with about 4-8 different meat varieties.  Purees of either regular or sweet potato are available, though that’s generally it as far as non-meats go.

The only downside to this is a general lack of options for dinner (which, I’ll remind you, is eaten between 10 pm and midnight throughout most of Argentina).  Most restaurants (and parillas for that matter) also serve a handful of pasta and noquis (gnocci) dishes, though the pasta options are almost identical throughout every restaurant in the entire country.  As much as I miss the steaks, I think the lack of options in Argentina would’ve gotten to me over time.

A parilla, with food guide (note: pic not mine). I mostly agree, though I found in many cases the chorizo I had was from beef and not pork.

The best steak dinner I had in Buenos Aires, by far, was at La Cabrera. There's always a line to get in, but they provide free champagne and cuts of steak (on toothpicks) to those outside, so even waiting is a pleasure at La Cabrera. Each serving gets four large cuts of meat with six dipping sauces each and then eight more hot tapas (not yet pictured). Epic, decadent meal, and one of the culinary highlights of Buenos Aires.

A more primitive parilla. In Ushuaia, a guide brought us out on kayaks to a cold island in the middle of nowhere and proceeded to build a fire for his makeshift parilla. There, an hour from civilized land by boat, sitting on fallen logs, we had a meal almost as perfect as the one above.

And for dessert?  Helados, and lots of it.  Meaning iced cream, the typical Argentinian helado is closer to Italian gelato than anywhere else I found in South America.  The frosty treat is popular across the continent, though harder and more similar to US iced cream elsewhere.  The Argentinian style is rich, creamy and ubiquitous.  There are almost more helado shops than parillas, with each one trying to out-gourmet the next.  Equally widespread are alfajores (al-fah-WHORE-eys), which some friends and family were lucky to get upon my return home last May.  These treats are made from two cake-like cookies pressed together with dulce de leche (caramel) in the center, and then usually coated in a thin layer of chocolate.  I found them “OK” at best, but the locals love ‘em.

A standard sampling of helados

A typical alfajore. I actually found pictures of my favorite style, but I only found said style once. These are the more readily available variant.

A typical Argentinian bakery. These are also tremendously widespread, and nearly every one seems to do a good business. Argentinians love their pastries.

Because who hasn't ever thought, upon eating a candied apple, "If only this had popcorn on it..."

Candied fruits, also with popcorn. I couldn't bring myself to try one of these, due to the thickness of the shiny, sugary glaze covering the fruit. Interestingly enough, I never saw these again until China, where they're also quite popular (sans popcorn, though)

Oh yeah.  Mate. Argentinians love their tea, and specifically, yerba mate.  Mate is a holly plant used to make tea throughout most of southern South America, though most popularly in Argentina.  As boiling the leaves tends to make them unpleasantly bitter, mate is instead steeped in hot water.  Due to high amounts of caffeine, the drink is a stimulant and is considered a social beverage in Argentina where it is passed around in small cups made from gourds called guampas.

Mate in Argentina, from Iguazu Falls in the north to Ushuaia in the far south, is inescapable.  Argentinians carry their guampas with them everywhere, typically with a small bag of tea, a bombilla (metal or wood straw used for drinking the tea while filtering out the leaves) and a thermos of hot water.  The leaves typically pack enough punch to be used for 7-10 servings of hot water; when they fail to provide any flavor, the mate is discarded and the gourd promptly refilled.  On buses, Argentinians pass their gourd around like a joint in a college dorm room.  At parties, it’s as likely that they show up with a thermos of hot water and a bag of mate as it is that they’d bring beer or wine.

Personally, I like the flavor but never quite got used to properly handling the bombilla.  The majority of these straws are made from metal, which doesn’t have much of a problem conducting heat.  Combine this with the near-boiling temperature of the hot water and it’s searing pain on the lips.  Though the response from all Argentinians is the same: “Oh, you get used to it…”

A bag of mate, along with two goards and a bombilla straw (pic not mine)