Hot bite of Chile

I am in the most modern restaurant in Santiago, the kind recognisable to gourmands all over the world. This sleek restaurant boasts a showpiece kitchen, tattooed chefs moving serenely amongst bonsai plants, and deconstructed appetisers served on local volcanic rock (“to represent movement”). Our next plate is a bit of a challenge, though: a vegetable parasite dish, served fresh as found in nature – on the twig where it grows for just one month in a year. The story of this strange, sticky fruit and its provenance, and the modern role of chefs in preserving and promoting Chile’s food resources, is, in a nutshell, what we are here to experience.

There is no easy way to understand Chile’s unique topography, at 4,300km long spanning almost the length of the South American continent. From the heat of the world’s driest desert in the north to the icy fjords of the south, the exciting way to travel is through its diverse culinary traditions. Like many other developing nations, Chile’s recent fast track to modernisation has resulted in the usual onslaught of fast food chains and imported processed junk food. Yet it is clear that producers, farmers and chefs alike are dedicated to promoting and utilising the premium produce from its fertile farmlands.

Our journey takes us from rural enclaves, where indigenous people first began cultivating llama and goat’s horn chilli, to the shiny capital city of Santiago, where young chefs are fusing the new and the old in search of their own national cuisine identity.

Excerpt from the February 2013 issue of epicure.