South American food?

[GatsbyGirl]

What is your favorite South American dish?

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Fabian's
4238 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA 22203

[JungMann]

If we're talking South American, I'm going to have to go with Chilean empanadas and Argentine asado, especially their morcilla. If we include Mexico and all of Latin America, then I have to switch to tortas and perhaps mixiote.

[danieljdwyer]

Given my love for starches cooked in an inedible plant material wrapper, I'd have to say hallacas. It's difficult to go through the holidays without them.

[Passadumkeg]

Yuca & plantano, frijoles negro y arroz tambien por favor!

[paulj]

humitas
fruits - narajilla, maracuya
seco de chivo (goat stew), sopa de patas

[Cancuk]

Roast Cuy - Ecuador

[Passadumkeg]

Cuy! Cuy! Cuy! What a great onomopoedic name!
Roasted cow udder and iguana.
I love the irony of eating piranas.

[Sam Fujisaka]

Had pirana waaaay up the Amazon in an indigenous village. Was like cold congealed snot clinging to a looooot of tiiiiiiny bones.

[Passadumkeg]

I had them on the upper reaches of the Amazon in the Beni, Bolivia. Wood grilled, they were tender white meat, but boney. How did you have cappybara? I had it grilled on a big spit in the Beni as well.

[Sam Fujisaka]

We had both ronsoco and majas working in Pucallpa, Peru. The majas (much larger than cuy, smaller than capybara) we had regularly for breakfast (guiso/stewed and served with rice) at a "restaurant" on the roadside in a small settlement at the turnoff from the Pucallpa - Lima highway into the area where we were doing participatory upland rice testing with remote settler communities. The ronsoco (capybara) I bought salted and smoked in the Pucallpa market - steamed it and served it as ham.

[Passadumkeg]

Majadito, a charasco and good ol' chicharon w/ a big pitcher of chicha, sopa de mani, pollo a la broasted, quinoa and papalisa.

[Sam Salmon]

Mexico-Dorado al mojo de ajo.

Central America-Pupusas

South America-Ceviche and then Pizza-not for the crust so much but for the Cheese.

[pikawicca]

A year ago, I was gadding about the Chilean countryside and had the most amazing eel dish.

[Ruth Lafler]

Lots of good seafood in Chile, as you might expect from a country where nowhere is more than 150 miles from the ocean!

[pikawicca]

I had the best eel dish in Chile, ever.

[DallasDude]

There are certain places and events I feel one must soak in during life's journey. Certainly Bunol's Tomato Festival where truckloads of the fruit are sacrificed. The colorful Hindu springtime festival, Holi (the Indians have a festival practically daily). And without question the nine-day festival of San Fermín in Pamplona and the very famous bull run.

But on point with the OP and food related, to be sure, a visit to the seaside town of Huacho, Peru will inspire some and infuriate others. I am speaking of the Huacho Guinea Pig Festival. Lots of singing and dancing and a famous coy fashion show where the winners are paraded, and the losers are baked, broil, roasted or fried to a tenderness only this rodent could attain.

[GatsbyGirl]

I should have been more clear. i meant Mexican/Latin American food.

[Sam Fujisaka]

Then I have to switch to: tamales, enchiladas, chiles rellenos, mondongo, mole(s), tacos, ... and so much more

[lagatta]

Except that Mexico is not in South America, and there is all of Central America in between.

[small h]

True, but if you start splitting hairs about that, it might occur to you that this question is already almost impossibly broad. Try replacing "South American" with "European" and see what you come up with!

[Sam Fujisaka]

lagatta, the OP is unconcerned about our regional differentiations and is just interested, it appears, in Latin American food from the US-Mexico border down to Tierra del Fuego.

[Ruth Lafler]

Mmmmmm ... king crab and Patagonian spring lamb grilled over a wood fire in Tierra del Fuego.

[Sam Fujisaka]

Mmmmmmmm.....

[Sam Fujisaka]

That really is an enigmatic question.

If the question regards South American (NOT including Mexico and Central/Meso America) dishes:

1. Peru: anticuchos, smoked capybara (ronsoco/majas) from the Amazon, ceviche (w/ chicha morada; Amazon), roast cuy (Andes), and tamales

2. Brasil: feijoada, manicoba, and moqueca

3. Bolivia: saltenas/empanadas, saise, roasted whole goat, Andean cheeses

4. Colombia: ajiaco, pan de yuca

[kubasd]

i was waiting for your response sam. I love saltenas, i miss the bolivian restaurant i used to live near that made the best I've had

[hazelhurst]

I'm confused...do you mean "souther dish" as in USA? Or do you mean "South American" as in, say, La Paz? I suppose it should be the former if the query is on this board but I am merely wondering.....

yours in a state of perpetual confusion....

[small h]

I vote for Latin America, rather than the American South. But the restaurant link is for...a Latin American restaurant in the American South! So I join you in perpetual confusion.

And, @ the OP, arepas.

[lagatta]

But one of the most populous Latin American countries is Mexico, in NORTH America! (Not to mention that the dominant language here in Québec, north of most of the US, is a Latin tongue)...

Bit more specifif please.

Though I do love good empanadas...

[paulj]

Her link is to Fabians, which bills itself as 'Mexican and South American'. The owner is from Ecuador, and has traveled widely, and also talks about a Latin Fusion.

The menu has things like
Parillada Mixta (mixed grill) - which sounds like a Mexican-Argentine fusion (beans, tortilla and chimichurri)
Lomo Saltado - Peruvian stir fry
Roast pork - Ecuadorian style http://laylita.com/recipes/2008/01/05/hornado-de-chancho-roasted-pork-leg/
Ecuadorian empanadas http://laylita.com/recipes/category/a...

'The South American Table' is a relatively new (2003) cookbook that covers the South American end of this cooking, also from the perspective of a well-traveled Ecuadorian.