Success at Lago Sofia, near Puerto Natales
Why cook on vacation? Leave the kitchen behind! Enjoy your precious two weeks vacation by sampling exotic dishes in foreign lands.
Fine!, but when you are travelling for an extended period, being able to make coffee or a hot meal when you feel like it is a bonus. Moreover, it can be educational and satisfying to be independent of what is offering, which may be inadequate.
In the Western world, motels and backpacker establishments usually have well-equipped kitchens available for use by guests. However, this may not be the case in Asia or Latin America, nor if you venture into the great outdoors. With no kitchen how do you go about cooking?
One of my travel companions would not stir out of bed in the morning until she was presented with a cup of coffee so the crux of the problem is how to boil water. If a campfire is not feasible then we must resort to modern technology.
How to Go About It
Two ways present themselves: a traveller’s electric immersion heater and a hiker’s mini gas stove. There are potential problems with both methods of heating.
With the electric heater you have to carry adaptor plugs to match the power supply of different countries. There may be no workable power point in your hotel room and certainly none out in the bush.
The gas stove provides maximum portability and greater versatility in cooking. Fine, but replacement gas cylinders are not universally available and you are not allowed to carry them on aeroplanes.
So why not be equipped with both methods of heating? A travelling couple can have one each. In South America you can buy a Taiwanese-made electric immersion heater for US$1 at street markets which is the best value dollar you’ll ever spend!
Puerto Varas and Volcán Osorno
Electric heating requires an enamel mug to contain the water and of diameter sufficient to hold the heating element and two eggs.
You are now set up to make coffee or tea at the crack of dawn, have a boiled egg for breakfast and soup for lunch.
To boil eggs, first prick the pointy end with a fork, add salt to the water and bring slowly to the boil. Turn off the power and let sit for few a minutes to make a perfect soft boiled egg.
The same can be done with a hiker´s gas stove but in addition you can make toast and fry eggs and bacon or scramble eggs, or whatever.
It is preferable to use a baffle plate which is easily made from the lid of a tin can. Punch holes in it which spreads the burner’s heat and prevents burning. An aluminium fry pan is required and aluminium foil is useful to prevent spattering. Pan fried trout is delicious. This is cooking for one or two persons.
Fish Cookery
First catch your fish – Rio Maullín near Puerto Varas
I always carry a wire rack in my luggage. Put this on some stones around the fire and get cooking. Successful anglers can easily smoke cook their trout or salmon!
First soak your fish, either whole or split, in brine for half an hour, then briefly wash and hang up to dry. Get your fire going and burn off some wood to get embers. Cover the embers with fresh wood to generate smoke and place your fish on the rack in the smoke. Turn them over every 5 or 10 minutes until done. Watch all the time in case any flames develop, then rescue everything. An exciting pastime! A bottle of red helps the process.
The fire can be built on the ground or in an old barbecue. Even without a rack your fish can be smoked by hanging above a smoky fire, or by cooking them with smoky embers at ground level under large leaves, such as the useful rhubarb-like Chilean gunnera having leaves up to a meter across.
Dishes to Try
For breakfast, a coffee and boiled egg with toast, butter and jam is hard to beat.
Desayuno Americano, with scrambled eggs, chopped ham and herbs is easy to make.
Gourmet-type canned or packet soups with toast or fresh bread rolls makes a good lunch.
Southern Chile is renown for its seafood and shell fish. If you are not an angler then head for the produce market or the supermarket . Fresh and smoked salmon is cheap and readily available. An easy, quickly prepared main meal is poached salmon with packet pasta, or instant potatoes and green peas, accompanied by a red wine, possibly Gato Negro!
Next day live it up at a fancy restaurant!
Smoking trout at Puerto Natales
The usual electricity supply in South America is 220-240 volts and certainly in Peru, Bolivia and Chile they use light-weight electrical fittings with two-pin plugs having round pins about 3 mm diameter and 18 mm apart. Avoid carrying converter plugs by buying a little imersion heater over there at a market or street stall.
Hiker’s gas cylinders are available in tourist hiking areas but scarce elsewhere. Often at a hostel you can pick up a free cylinder donated by a departed traveller.
Your gas stove is useful for a fry-up anytime, for making a hot drink or soup when on a day hike, or cooking dinner at your hotel when there is a power cut (frequent in Latin America).
Where to go in South America?
In South America it is great fun exploring the produce markets, and super or hypermarkets, looking at all the unfamiliar goodies and buying something exotic to cook or warm up in your traveller’s kitchen. Chile is my favourite country for roaming around, sight-seeing, eating, cooking and fishing.
In particular, a great place to linger awhile is the beautiful town of Puerto Varas on the shore of Lago Llanquihue in the Lake District.
Economical downtown accommodation can be found at hospedajes Colores del Sur at Santa Rosa 318, or Ellenhaus around the corner, within a block of the Plaza de Armas and the jetty, where early morning or evening you can catch a trout, or watch the locals do so. From the lake flows the crystal-clear Rio Maullin where you can spend a pleasant half-day fishing for rainbow trout up to 16 inch size.
Fish stall at Angelmó
To do so take a 50 cent collectivo ride to the road bridge on the way to the village of Nueva Braunau.
For the gastronomical experience of a lifetime grab a minibus for nearby Puerto Montt and adjacent fishing port of Angelmó. The fish market is fantastic with its many tiny restaurants and the craft shops are the best you will find anywhere.
Buen provecho!
Questions?
If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our South America Insiders page.