Sitting high up in the Andean Cordillera, I could have hoisted my plate into the air and caught a well-thrown Chilean Sea Bass. Fish abound in Chile. During our five-month motorcycle crossing of 18 Latin American countries we delighted in a cacophony of fish soups, stews and preparations that would last the entire long and skinny of our journey through Chile.
It began one night when we arrived exhausted in costal village of Puerto Varas. Little lights in the windows of a Mediterranean style diner coaxed the idea that a steaming bowl of soup would elicit a good sleep. "Is the Cream of Fish fresh?" "Claro!” came the enthusiastic response and we awaited our elixir for a long ride. Small tender morsels of clam seeped their freshness into an aromatic cream base that was so light, my taste buds smiled. I inhaled the steam into my tiredness, memorizing its fragrance in hopes that I could enjoy the soup again in my dreams.
The simplest restaurant menus read like a wine list in Postrio; the selection ranged from the familiar sea bass, lobster, crab, and scallops, broadened to include mussels, squid, octopus, sea urchin, abalone, eel and confused us with Picoroco, a barnacle with white crablike meat, and Piure, a bazaar fish with a strong indescribable flavor.
We concluded a hot spring bath near Pucon with a savory mountain view and a fillet of salmon so flavorful that we decided that salmon was definitely Chile’s feature fish. The 2 lb plate of smoked salmon that I ate the next week in Quellon helped corroborated that theory. We still moved on to different fish.
From the doorways of the seafood shanties in Angel Mo, robust apron clad ladies screamed the daily specialties: "Congrio! Lenguado! Papas Fritas! Super Caliente!" Upon entering, two giant arms shoved us down a long skinny bench to plug up a hole in the seating. We watched the crowds eat and leave as newcomers slid in. Slide. Eat. Leave. Slide. Eat. Leave. I watched the fisherman on the pier until my soup arrived; it was a fillet of Sea bass swimming around in a bowl of hot salt water. The curved fillets curled into my spoon, fell over my tongue like a kimono and melted down my throat. Enric managed a mid-slurp acknowledgement of pleasure, “oooh,” and said nothing more until he finished the bowl.
Our waiter in Chiloe panted under the weight of two giant Curanto platters piled with steaming shellfish and aromatic meats. They had been slow cooked in earthen pits and used to make Curanto broth. We made a mountain out of palm-sized mussel and clamshells, and sliced through scallops the size of Japanese Eggplant. When it comes to seafood, size does matter. The terrine of rich consommé came last, so we sipped it from mussel shells spoons.
At El Marinero in Puerto Natales, the fish broth was as simple as the bare white walls that enclosed a wooden stove and crowded tables. My bowl resembled a steaming version of the sea and the consommé a cauldron of fish with a touch of tomato and olive oil. The recipe would be simple save one exception: Fish must be freshly caught the same day in Southern Chile.
In Ushuaia (the most austral city in the world) our taste buds were welcomed with the fanfare of Cazuella de Centolla y Pulpo (casserole of king crab and octopus). A gentle sauté of olive oil and tomato essence left the octopus and crab swimming in silky symbiosis. Perhaps it was fortunate that we were now in Argentina; the abundance of so much good fish in Chile had become a bit daunting. I felt like a judge in the Olympics, repeatedly giving out 9.95s for freshness, and 9.98s for artistic composition.
I leaned against Enric’s back as we rode up the Atlantic coast of Argentina staring west across the Pampa imagining the view from some great seafood restaurant high up in the Andean Cordillera.
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