Y para mi, agua sin carne por favor! - that sentence caused some of my friends to create a second nickname for me- along with "Michael Schuhmacher", I could be called "agua sin carne" now (non of them is ever used though. I've never had a real nickname). You might be wondering why I would order a bottle of water without meat, but it really is easy- I need to say "without meat" all the time, so that it once happened when I was ordering water, shouldn't surprise anyone.
Being a vegetarian in Chile isn't easy. I can't really call myself a vegetarian anymore- here, I got a third nickname: "fakie"- since I came here, I eat fish and seafood, which I earlier tried to avoid, on a daily basis. I also tried different meat- I was told if I try Chilean barbecue, I would not be able to be a vegetarian any more- so I did try and no, it didn't convince me to eat meat again. But I could never understand that, even when I was eating meat, how people were going on and on about steaks. They never really interested me much.
When I was in Europe, I was quite strict about my diet. I even had episodes of being vegan or almost vegan (not because of the ideology, but I would just cook so much from vegan blogs, that at some point I suddenly realized I hadn't had any animal products for a while). I never ate meat-based soup or anything which contained meat which I could put aside I did eat fish from time to time though, but this was only as a huge treat and less than once a month. None of these is possible here.
When I first started working here and still lived in the Cajon, I would get lunches and dinners at work/on the way home (now that I live in Santiago, I only have lunch at work). There are mostly two dishes to choose from and of course, both containing meat. So there would I start. "Is it possible to get something without meat?" "Eeeeeee but why?" "I don't eat meat" "How, you don't eat meat?". There was the same conversation with the same people every day. Sometimes, when I didn't look what I was getting, I would open the lunch box at home to find a chicken breast in it (apparently, "carne" only means red meat and poultry is not meat anymore!). At some point they did learn that "no meat" means no chicken and no steaks. I began to eat eggs. I still eat eggs every day during a week. People become so hopeless when I say I don't eat meat, the only vegetarian dish most of them can think of is a fried egg. The lunch canteen that we go to though brought it to the next level, serving me a spinach-baked-with-egg kind of thing every day. I could complain a lot about this, but the others get a "pollo con arroz" every other day too, so at least we suffer together. There are, surprisingly, dishes that are ment to be vegetarian- bean soup poroto and lentil soup lenteja. However, I work for a construction company and the workers don't believe they get enough strength from the plants so... There are meat pieces in these dishes too. But I stopped to care. I just put the pieces aside and eat the vegetarian part. Yes, I'm a fakie.
What I suffer with food over the week, I can take back on the weekends. Chile, with its unbelievably long coast, has a great access to seafood and fish. There are lots and lots of sushi places (which is surprising, considering the fact that I have seen very few Asians here). We have sushi at least once a week! But even though it's really good, it's not the best thing you can get. My dear readers, if you haven't tried Peruvian cuisine yet- it's like you've never lived. I thought I'd had some good seafood before, but since I came here, I know I was wrong. The best seafood I've ever eaten is the seafood made by Peruvians. I don't know what they do with it. But believe me, you can take anything from the menu, not knowing what it is (I usually just ask whether it contains meat or only seafood and fish, if it's the latter, I take it and let them surprise me) and await a perfect feast every single time. I did my research and it seems like there are no Peruvian restaurants, neither in Cracow nor in Munich... I think someone should take the opportunity and start some places. If you can recreate what they do here in Europe, I'm sure it would be the most successful place in town!
But for now, I decided to have the real Peruvian experience in Peru... On Friday I changed my flight date which means that instead of right after the internship, I'm going home a month later. Taking 4 weeks to travel through Peru and Bolivia! As I get different views on which is more worth visiting from almost everyone I talk to, I will have to go and see for myself... If anyone of you ever visited these countries, please feel free to drop me a line! I would appreciate any piece of information or advice. For now, I have no plans at all! Haven't even decided whether I should start in Lima or La Paz. I'm like Jon Snow. I know nothing.
Brak komentarzy:
Prześlij komentarz