Exchange Eats

Illustrations by Grace McKenna

After much deliberation, last Wednesday my flat mates and I treated ourselves to dinner out. A Dane, an Italian, a Spaniard, and an Englishman (and woman!) put their culinary fancies aside in the name of a shared common love, albeit with a twist - Chilean sushi.  

The previous night we had gathered on the wooden pallets-made-seating of our common room to muse on our one month of friendship. The mood was nostalgic with a latent hint of domestic division - our bubbly abuela of an administadora had just revealed herself to be more of a Big Brother, incarnated in the looming vigilance of an unassuming camera neatly placed in the kitchen’s corner, assessing every culinary mishap and transgression. My experience of Santiago had thus far been defined by these strangers. We had conjoined to forge a safety blanket of ropey Spanish phrases to brace the unknowns of life abroad, facing the new flavour of South American life as a gringo ensemble. It seemed both monumental and ephemeral how we had lived, breathed and eaten together for an entire month. Food was thus steadfastly selected as an appropriate mode of celebration and commemoration for such a pivotal occasion. I willingly obliged.  

My past month has been characterised by culinary exchange and crossover. Our dingy kitchen, built for five yet forced to stretch its culinary prowess to seventeen seemingly endless rounds of dishes and pans, has irresolutely adapted to its role of culinary cultural amalgamation. I fondly recall the first empanada-cum-olive branch, offered over the hob from my Chilean-Spanish neighbour - I am yet to fulfil my promise of making pierogi as per my aunt’s recipe (if I don’t I fear she may stop knocking on my door that signals a free bathroom, saving me from the frightful waiting times for a humble shower). My empanada blessed tastebuds had disproved my own preconceptions of a bland Chilean cuisine, based on the extremely reliable research of a last panic scroll before take-off from London Heathrow (oh the wonders of the Instagram reel algorithm)! A month on, I openly defend the ‘dry, basic and unimaginative’ Chilean cuisine that I had oh so feared. 

In an overwhelmed haze during the first week, I orientated myself through memorising the various street vendors that lined the busy high-street to the left of my residential road. Perhaps concerned by my squinting stares, their selection of completos (Chilean hotdogs loaded with outrageously creamy avocado), mote con huesillo (a cooling summer drink of cooked husk wheat and stewed peaches) and humitas to go (ground corn wrapped resourcefully in the corn husk), allowed me to sketch my culinary and geographical bearings. Although in hindsight I was potentially confusing acute home-sicknesses with an inquisitive hunger, I became intrigued by the omnipresence, much to my delight, of sushi joints, offloading potentially diabolically offensive concoctions such as the sushi burger and the equally as deep fried ‘hand roll’. This and the intriguing Chilean pronunciation (Suchi), implored me, usually democratic in group food choice ruminations, to demand we visit an alluring ‘suchi’ joint.  

With a sushi-centred skip to my step, I led my unassuming flat mates to the nearby Barrio Italia known as the perfect blend of gastronomy and entertainment, in disbelief that they had entrusted me with the momentous occasion. We ordered two sharing plates and while eagerly waiting we as readily discussed the origins of Sushi Nikkei, a product of the Japanese diaspora’s fusion with Peruvian cuisine - Nikkei itself meaning emigrants and their descendants in Japanese. The lopsided flag bunting that bordered the ceiling of our small table’s perimeter seemed to homage Japan, Chile and Peru, an amalgamation reflected in the food’s presentation, at which we gawked as José the waiter balanced it over through the plastic cherry blossom donned hallway. Like the frills of a dangerously beautiful mythical dragon, I was simultaneously intimidated and entranced by the heaping tower of ceviche crowning the neatly arranged sushi pieces, red onion canines and squid molars perched seemingly out of place on a bed of neatly arranged pillowy soft rice. 

My initial apprehension, I hasten to add, was mainly due to a recent ceviche trauma from an unspeakably awful bout of food poisoning up north in San Pedro de Atacama, two weeks previously. I ignored my stomach’s flight or fight warnings and picked up my chopsticks to indulge. A firm group favourite was the Chilean lomo saltado (stir-fried beef) filling adorned with a generous heap of incredibly thinly sliced potato fries, reminiscent of the Chilean meat feast Chorillana. In accordance with the national Chilean reverence of the avocado or ‘palta’, I admired the inventiveness of replacing the typical nori seaweed encasing with a thinly sliced avocado wrap - I will continue to speak shamelessly of the superiority of Chilean avocados, book your outrageously priced plane ticket from Edinburgh now! This ingenious intercontinental marriage was accompanied by the suspiciously yellow hue of the Inca Cola - think the weird cousin of your red bull aunt who married a pack of bubble gum with a dominant Simpsons gene. Who would have thought that sushi could be elevated with the golden touch of the deep fry machine?  

Pleasantly surprised at the minimal dent to our bank accounts, we returned deeply satisfied with our debut into the infamous Chilean ‘suchi’, united by the buzz of culinary fusion that reflected our internationally branching bond.  

I hope my ‘Exchange Eats’ column will embolden you to also force your flat mates out to eat or, who knows, maybe even cook them dinner and get in their good books… ¡Bueno provecho!