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From generation to generation
and kitchen to kitchen, the "Bocados Típicos"
of sisters Cecilia and Casandra Fernández
recovers old Chilean traditions and places them
over a table that tastes like love for what´s
own.
Flowers, garlic braids and
red-hot chili peppers, baskets and crafts are
some of the various elements that decorate the
warm place where sisters Cecilia and Casandra
Fernández offer their "Bocados Típicos"
("Typical snacks") over a squeaky-clean
white tablecloth. It´s something they do
in fairs and cultural events and that invites
the public to meet again the flavors of their
childhood, their landscape, their grandmother
and family.
"Our main source of lessons is the relation
with people. We investigate and share what we
know , and people also contribute a lot. Some
get emotional when they see the things they used
to eat or drink when kids. They stay here talking,
eating `picarones´ or `sopaipillas´.
They remember the farm, where they used to make
corn-coffee because they wouldn´t have much
money. They tell us about the things that were
done in their homes, the traditions of certain
places, they even give us recipes and secrets.
We learn a lot. There´s a real rich exchange
that makes the knowledge and tradition grow",
explains Cecilia.
Empanadas (including the small "pequenes",
filled with onion and chili-peppers, no meat),
earthenware-oven baked bread, egg-bread, "picarones",
"alfajores", thousand-layer cake ("something
very typical, with the same dough and manjar of
the alfajor"), jam, fig cakes ("an almost
extint fruit") and merengues; are some of
the delicious things that come out of her kitchen.
From different places they get products such as
"charqui", ulmo-honey and the traditional
"chumbeque" from Iquique (a kind of
small cookie filled with sugar and Pica-lemon).
For the thirst, there´s always a glass of
"mote con huesillos", served very cold
and made on a clay-pot. You prepare the corn or
fig-coffee, the "chupilca" (wine with
toasted flour) or, better yet, the "mistela",
a soft and very aromatic liquor made during the
Colony only for women.
With their greatgrandmother´s recipe, which
includes cinnamon, spices, orange skin, brandy
and syrup; Casandra and Cecilia make their own
"mistela", their stand´s great
pride. That´s why they show it on bottles
on an old cupboard where they also keep a picture
of her old mentor, that more resembles an altar
than a kitchen buffet. This drink is also made
with celery or beetroot. "You can make it
of many things", explains Cecilia. "Basically
it is the boiling of a herb or a fruit with brandy
and sugar".
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