Chilean goodies

One of my favorite things to do in foreign countries (or anywhere in the US for that matter) is to peruse the truck stops, grocery stores and markets for interesting local packaged goods you won’t find at home. We hit up all three during the week, and discovered some pretty interesting eats, from intense miel du ulmo honey made from the bees that pollinate an evergreen native to the Chilean rain forests to Serrano ham potato chips from Lay’s “Mediterraneas” collection. The dusting of rust-hued powder immediately kicked in our Pavlovian response to BBQ potato chips, but the actual ham flavor convinced our taste buds otherwise. The oregano chips were good, but we couldn’t shake our sour cream and onion instincts. Either way, we polished off both bags and then moved onto some paper-thin lemon cookies one of my travel companions picked up at a random art gallery in Valparaíso, spiced things up with merquen dried chile powder, sweetened things up with dried blueberries and cherries and finished it all off with some Big Time gum…loved the name, font and flavor, which sort of reminded me of Gator Gum..yum!

Miel de ulmo honey

Local chips

Addictive lemon wafer cookies courtesy of Stacey

Dried fruit

Merquen spice

Besides cute, I'm still not sure what these were

We're on our way, we're making it..