"Funkadelic. It's a culinary term."

Chef Patricio took a scheduled day off today and we had Chef Suzy for "Chile". She teaches the afternoon session, and she's been to our class for lunch, and her "resting" face has a sternness about it that had us a little wary. But she's a kick in the pants and a great teacher, and class today was as pleasant as any we've had so far.

First of all, she played CDs of contemporary Latin music, which was alternately hip-hoppy and trance, with some accordians thrown in. Great cooking music.

Did you know that the definition of "third world" is that a country's gross national product (GNP) is not sufficient to feed its population?

So Chile is like the US West Coast, only upside down, with "Alaska" at the bottom instead of at the top. "Think of what we eat. They eat the same things. It's trippy!"

The indigenous populations of Chile "hung in there," according to Chef, so their influence on the cuisine is much more pronounced than in other South American countries, where they were decimated by disease early on. The first choice of protein is fish and shellfish, they eat more vegetables than the Argentinians, for example, and starch is more of a "third place" food. There's a British influence, especially regarding sweet desserts and the whole "afternoon tea" culture. And a Moorish influence (they came to Chile to mine copper), apparent in ceviche and escabeche: "The Moors taught the whole world how to cook with acid."

We had great food today. I made fried empanadas de queso:



The dough was a little tricky (flaky) to work with, but they held together well in the oil and didn't leak cheese and they weren't greasy at all. We also had empanadas with ground meat, as well as a tomato/onion salad (with great marinated onions), arroz con saffron, escabeche de pescado (baked fish with tomatoes, onions, and chilies), and some fabulous banana ice cream that Alex made. You start by cutting up the bananas and searing them in an incredibly hot pan, which caramelizes them. Then you purée them and go from there.

Even more impressive was the "Pastel de Tres Leches" that Andrea made:



It was a pretty big, messy production to get it all together, but Chef Suzy walked her through it with encouragement and humor. "There you go, Mama!"