A Culinary Journey:
Experiencing Chilean culture through traditional dishes and wines
By: Casey Voyles
Photos: Jonathan Norris
Constanza Estelrich instructs her students on how to properly roll empanada dough.
Waiting patiently in the plaza in front of the iconic Santiago Mercado Central stood Constanza Estelrich, surrounded by her students for the day. Year round, Estelrich’s company takes tourists on a six-hour culinary journey through local markets and around a teaching kitchen accompanied with a wine tasting experience.
Estelrich, who is originally from Mendoza, Argentina, and her husband José Miguel Valenzuela own and operate Uncorked Wine Tours and Cooking Workshops. Uncorked began with only wine tours and has since expanded to include Chilean cuisine inspired cooking workshops.
At just 13 years old, Estelrich started guiding trips, and in high school she began organizing them. Estelrich says, “I knew I wanted to do tourism at 14.” By 20, she was leading tastings and selling wine in Argentina. After moving to Chile, Estelrich wanted to continue her tourism work but it was different.
“After all the years of military control, people couldn’t express themselves and became much more conservative,” Estelrich said. “They are like a generation behind compared to Argentina but they are waking up.” She says this is the perfect moment to start a business and be a professional in tourism.
Valenzuela was an engineer and worked more than 10 years in logistics and IT. Once Uncorked took off, he chose to jump on board to chase his true passions--wine and food.
“My family has vineyards in southern Chile so I’ve always had a lot of closeness to the world of wine and on the other hand we are passionate cooks, always looking for new flavors,” Valenzuela says.
A local vendor set up outside of La Vega near Mercado Central in Santiago.
So together the couple is now self employed and even looking for a new chef for the cooking classes. Valenzuela suggests the morning class to visitors because then students get to experience the markets.
The morning begins promptly at 10 a.m. with the first stop being right inside the grand doorway of Mercado Central. If the fish heads aren’t enough to grasp the students attention, the overwhelming smell of ocean water and the catch of the day will do the trick. As Estelrich weaves between the stands, she explains the array of sea creatures on display. The fishermen sell everything from chilean sea bass to barnacles.
Estelrich says that Chileans don’t eat as much fish as you’d imagine. Around 70 percent of the seafood caught off the cost is exported, mainly to the U.S. and Brazil. If fish don’t fit the menu, La Vega sits right across the street equipped with an assortment of meats, fruits and vegetables.
Even while waiting for the crosswalk signals and shuffling through the crowds, food is never out of sight. Vendors set up along the streets outside La Vega to sell a variety of goods including herbs and spices that compliment the meat and vegetables sold inside.
Once the group makes it through the entrance to La Vega, Estelrich leads the students single file around the meat stations. In the markets, no part of the animal is off limits. Whether it is pig heads or chicken feet, it’s all there.
Estelrich said, “Beef in Chile is tough because the cattle have to graze on mountains,” not like in the U.S. where there are miles of flat farm land.
After exploring the fish and meat, the rainbow color of fruits and vegetables peeking over the heads of the masses, catch the students eyes. Fruits and vegetables are stacked to the ceiling arranged and coordinated as if the market is some sort of art gallery.
Before the pears can be soaked in wine they first have to be peeled.
Estelrich says seasonal ingredients determine what is being cooked and served, both in market restaurants and in the home, unlike in the U.S. where even in the dead of winter the supermarkets have summer crops such as strawberries and pineapples. Visitors and locals alike are also so inept to the animals that it’s no surprise to spot cats napping on top of the oranges.
Pumpkins fill truck beds and lay freshly chopped throughout the market. It’s almost winter in Chile but Estelrich says pumpkins are used year round, specifically as a flavoring added to sopapillas to signify they are Chilean. It’s their signature ingredient.
After picking up some extra cilantro and a fresh sopapilla from a street cart, the group flags down a taxi and heads to the teaching kitchen. While walking into the kitchen, Estelrich tells the students to make themselves at home. The rectangle wooden table stands in the middle of the kitchen surrounded by sinks, counter space and hanging along the far wall is a personalized chalk board.
“We made the kitchen look like a kitchen that would be at home,” Estelrich says.
In true Chilean fashion, the class begins with pebre, a chunky salsa, and sopapillas paired with pisco sours. Pisco sours are one of the most popular drinks in Chile made with pisco whiskey, lime juice, simple syrup and shaken egg whites that create the foam head.
“There’s a big fight with Peru over who made it first but it doesn’t matter, they were all Spanish colonies,” Estelrich says.
Empanadas can be filled with any sort of meat and vegetables and can either be fried or baked.
Red wine soaked pears rest in the window of the kitchen until time for desert.
The following courses consist of shrimp ceviche, empanadas de pino and red wine poached pears with English cream. While class members roll the empanada dough, they learn that empanadas de pino are special to Chile because the pino, or the beef, stuffed empanadas are usually only found in Chile.
After a heavy meal of empanadas or for a midday pick me up, Estelrich says mate is the hot drink of choice. Mate is a traditional drink made from the dried leaves of yerba mate and contains an analog of caffeine, called mateine.
The tea is meant to be shared even though it’s typically served in a small kettle like cup with a drinking straw. She says Chileans share it in the car on long trips or while studying for exams for the caffeine boost.
Tea might be popular for a caffeine boost but doesn’t compare to the importance of wine. Estelrich serves each course with either a white or red wine to compliment the flavors of the food.
“You should always try to make a connection between the food and the wine,” says Estelrich.
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She says for example, when having chicken with spicy sauce, you need a stronger wine, maybe a cabernet, to compete with the flavors. Some types foods are hard to pair with like Indian food. Little to no wine can fight with that so Estelrich says there’s no need to spend an immense amount of money on wine to have with that meal.
Estelrich says the technical part of wine is her passion but she hates the snobbiness in the wine industry.
“Now it’s so trendy. There are so many people talking about wine and have no idea,” Estelrich says.
She says the Casablanca Valley is home to 14 different valleys where the biggest difference in quality is determined by East to West because of the Andes and the oceans. The Uncorked Wine Tours visit local boutique wineries in small groups of 2 to 8 people.