Las Rocas

When the February 2010 tsunami washed inland over much of the small fishing village of Loanco, in the Maule province of south central Chile, many homes were totally destroyed, the fishermen lost all of their boats, motors, and nets, and even their new tractor for hauling the boats out of the water was a total loss. None died. They knew what to do, and escaped. The villagers' belongings were strewn along the coast for miles, and the villagers themselves were dispersed around the area, taking refuge with friends and relatives so as to have a roof over their heads for the cold, rainy Chilean winter that would soon be upon them.

I have sort of "adopted" Loanco as my escape from today's sometimes deafening clamor. Whenever I visit Chile, and can get away, I spend a few days at the very isolated coastal refuge Ximena's sister Veronica and her husband Joaquin have built that sits on a bluff looking out over the long, lonely sandy beach that runs from Loanco north to a spectacular lighthouse, El Faro Caranza. My visits now follow a routine that I imagine often when I am not fortunate enough to be there. After a five-hour drive down the Pan American highway and a diversion east through either Constitucion or Cauquenes, I reach their place by driving in along a dirt path from the main road through pastures, wooden farmgates, past rundown adobe farmhouses with ferocious mangy dogs, over a huge sand dune, through a clump of cypress trees, and down into the back yard of Veronica and Joaquin's place. About halfway along this path, there is an overlook, a place where you can look way down to the left as you enter, and see Loanco. This view of Loanco is usually lovely, since you can appreciate the blue-green waters crashing on the rocky shoreline around the small village. The distance filters out the poverty, open sewers, and near futility and dangers of trying to make a living as an antisan fisherman. In spite of the distance filter, this view of Loanco was a sad, sad scene the last time I visited, in May, before returning to the US.

So when I visited again in September of this year, I arrived at this overlook

late in the afternoon with a certain degree of anxiety. I feared what I would see, so I sort of looked indirectly out of the corner of my eye, thinking just a slight glance would keep me from seeing the uglyness of Loanco's destruction. But what a surprise! There were boats on the shore, and it was pretty obvious they had motors and were back at work. There were still vacant lots where some houses had been before, but there were also signs of construction activity. So I spent the night still expectant of what I would find the next day during my customary walk to Loanco, but comforted by the feeling that maybe Loanco was recovering, maybe they have a chance of getting back to normal.

Bright and early the next morning, after a big cup of Nescafe with hot milk and burned hallulla toast (in Chile this toast mostly comes burned) with lots of real butter and honey from the Olmo flower, I enthusiastically headed down the dune, and over the beach towards Loanco. How the earth and her earthlings slowly recover from disasters is really something to marvel. Several years before the tsunami, Joaco had planted Ammophila grass to stabilize the dunes closest to the ocean in front of his property. It was working, but Joaco had told me he was sure all his work had been washed away in the tsunami. However, as I crossed this line of low dunes on my way to Loanco, I could see that the Ammophila had survived its Frebruary drowning and was sprouting anew. It was miraculously continuing to do its job. The scraps and pieces of Loanco's belongings which just seven months earlier had virtually blanketed the beach were slowly and progressively being buried or washed out to sea. Tips of splintered bedposts, smashed bookcases and chairs, boat oars, and tattered clothing were still sticking out of the sands, and there were still too many signs of the disaster that struck this village. But, it seemed to me that it would not be long before the sea will swallow and the sands will cover what was lost by the residents of Loanco in the tsunami.

Those of you who have followed this blog, or have been fortunate to have visited Loanco, know that my destination whenever I trek down the beach to Loanco is first to watch the fishermen arrive with their catch (their and my timing is such that when I am starting my day, they usually are beginning to finish theirs!) and then a short walk through town to Maria's and Dago's restaurant Las Rocas.

On this day in September, as I walked into the midst of the boats on the beach, I was a little early or the fishermen were late so there was no one around, but I could tell by the tracks in the sand that at least some of the new boats had gone out to fish. I figured if I waited a bit, I would see them return with their catch. A quick look around revealed several new boats with shiny new motors. As it turns out, the Loanco fishermen were helped by contributions from a mining association from the north of Chile, the national (international, really) airline, and others to

rebuild their small fleet of fishing boats. And a special line of credit from the Chilean government's fisheries ministry was being made available. Someone had provided the resources to buy a new tractor to haul the boats to and from the water (they used oxen up until a couple of years ago) and the fact that they now had that new tractor parked high on a cement platform well away from the sea made me chuckle. The building used by the fishermen to store fish and fishing equipment, house bathrooms and changing rooms, and serve as a fish market when the catch was sufficient was still totally vacated and probably due to be demolished.

There is an ambitious plan to create a Ruta de Caletas (small fishing village tourism route) to rebuild facilites in 5 or 6 fishing villages in the region, including Loanco. This project, designed by several architects from leading Chilean Universities, pretends to build attractive facilities to house storage areas for fishermen, restaurants and walkways for tourists and townspeople, and shops for artisan products. This initiative is interesting, ambitious, and well worth following, for if it does contribute to improving the economies and living conditions in these poorest of enclaves along the Chilean coast it will be wonderful. Maybe at the same time they will make sure all open sewers in these small forgotten towns are closed and appropriate facilities installed for all dimensions of waste and water management.

So there is noticeable progress with the fishermen. The day before my visit, someone had told me they had had lunch at Las Rocas Restaurant a few days before, and the fate of the owners, Maria and Dago, is of utmost interest to me (as you would know from several of my previous postings on this blog). So having checked out the situation of the fishermen I directed my attention towards the other end of town where Las Rocas stood previously and where Dago had, but lost, his small store. I could see the site where Las Rocas stood before, and sure enough, it was being rebuilt...on the same site perched just several feet above sea level on the rocks. To remind you, this restaurant, totally destroyed in the tsunami, is where you could previously feast on raw erizos (sea urchins), locos en salsa verde (Chilean abalone with a sauce of oil, chopped onion and parsley), paila marina (mixed seafood soup), caldillo de congrio (conger eel soup), fried pescada (merluza or hake), almejas (clams), machas (razor clams), and all accompanied by ensalada Chilena (tomato and onion), and the best french fries on the planet (most likely owing to the fact they still use lard in which to fry them). To fully enjoy this setting and menu, the meal was usually preceeded by a small glass of vaina (a blend of fortified sweet wine or port, cacao and egg) if it is before noon or pisco sour (no time limits nor description necessary) and accompanied by a healthy amount of nice cold Chilean white wine from the producers cooperative in Cauquenes, and a long conversation with Maria. All this was on my mind as I approached the site, for clearly it was not operational. As I walked down the main street, I saw ahead on the left, a sign that read "Las Rocas" next to a small cement house that had partially survived the tsunami and had been rebuilt. It was closed, but as I stood looking at the large menu board laongside the door and inside at the few tables and bar, Maria appeared in a pickup truck with her daughter-in-law who helps her with the restaurant. She recognized me from my prior visits, and with a big

smile on her face (and on mine also to be sure) she gave me a big hug and announced they were back in business. I asked about Dago, who she said was up above on a piece of property planting garlic, but would be at their temporary Las Rocas later in the day. She explained how their optimism won out over their fear of another tsunami (after all, "how many 100-year tragedies can one be victim to in a lifetime?") and how a new, expanded, more modern Las Rocas will be functioning on the original site by the end of October, in time for the entire spring/summer/fall season when most visitors come to Loanco.

Maria rushed off to do the shopping for Las Rocas' lunch crowd, so after checking out the rebuilding process at the old Las Rocas site, I left Loanco, walked back up the beach, got my car, and decided to visit a small town inland where my Peace Corps colleague Norton was stationed from 1967-69. Empedrado had always interested me, but I had never visited this town that sits truly in the middle of nowhere. You don't go through Empedrado. You have to want to go there, and I did, just to see where Norton spent two years of his young life before returning to Wisconsin to become a vegetable farmer and raise a family. Even though paved roads have replaced the dirt ruts Norton must have travelled to and from Empedarado, this visit took longer than I thought it would (they all do) and I arrived back in Loanco at about 2:30 to have lunch. After a long conversation with Dago, who explained with great enthusiasm how he was going to have the refurbished and much improved Las Rocas functioning soon, I was going to sit alone in Maria's temporary Las Rocas to have lunch. As I sat down a man who was sitting with his mother at a neighboring table invited me to sit with them to have lunch. Through "locos en salsa verde" and "pescada frita con ensalada Chilena" and, yes, a couple of bottles of Lomas de Cauquenes "carignan", we talked about the chances of Loanco continuing to grow and possibly thrive if the architect's project to build the "Ruta de Caletas" goes forward. My lunch companions were brimming with optimism about a grwoing tourism in the region as a result of this project. I am not so sure about that, but I do know that Maria and Dago have enough persistence and optimism to ensure that their restaurant will continue to serve the wide variety of Chilean seafood that attracts people from the region, and some like me regularly to this out of the way spot on the Chilean coast. I hope the projects to rebuild Loanco and other fishing villages are successful, and that the fine folks who live in these towns eventually can live more healthy lives without open sewers and precarious economic conditions, but I also hope that change does not stifle the entrepreneurial and independent drive so many of them have, especially Maria and Dago.

Written in Leesburg, Virginia on October 19, 2010

AWAY TOO LONG

DavesChile has been too silent, for too long. But there are reasons, like buying and moving into a new home and taking on a new job with the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs. But, the move is over, and the new job is only part time.

Chile had begun to recover from the devastating earthquake in February (see previous postings), only to find that as a result of an explosion 33 miners are trapped alive far below the surface in a copper mine near Copiapo in northern Chile. The international press is of course flocking to the San Jose mine, to be there when these 33 miners are rescued hopefully during October, after what can only be described as a magnificent rescue effort. The press and many in Chile appear to be much more concerned now about these 33 victims than the thousands of victims still trapped by poverty and destruction in the south central part of Chile affected by the earthquake and Tsunami that occured earlier this year. For tourists and Chileans alike, Chile's geography has always been an attraction, due to its natural beauty and diversity, but in 2010 the unfortunate aspects of her geography have attracted more attention.

In the midst of these tragedies, Chile elected a new President and celebrated its Bicentennial as a nation with a somewhat muted but typically optimistic Chilean four-day holiday around September 18. The celebration this year spawned a new very popular drink named "El Terremoto", which of course we tried. This "Terremoto" will require a separate posting on this blog for itself.

We travelled to Chile during the month of September to repair the damage to our apartment in Santiago caused by the earthquake, and to join the Chileans in their Bicentennial celebration. I made a visit to coastal Maule that suffered so much back in February, to the towns of Cauquenes, Chanco, Pelluhue, Cunaripe, Constitucion, and most certainly the fishing village of Loanco. It is spring in Chile now, and the "aromos" are blazing with yellow flowers, the plum trees are brightening the roadsides and front yards of rural Chile, and it appears, although there is clearly much suffering and work to do in these areas, that life for these humble and hardworking people may be on the cusp of a long process of rebuilding a better future.

You will be hearing much more regularly now from DavesChile. We intend to discuss with you in future postings the earthquake reconstruction we observed, the Bicentennial celebration we participated in, and Chile's economic and political progress and challenges we follow. In the meantime, there are two pieces of information I want you to know now: Dago and his wife Maria, owners of the seaside restaurant in Loanco that was totally destroyed by the Tsunami in February, have begun to rebuild their business. Yes, you guessed it; on the same site! Driven by a deep reservoir of optimism, and limited by a realistic weighing of their options, they again will be serving congrio frito, machas a la parmesana, and sopa de choritos by the end of October of this year. And, much to my surprise and delight, "The Last Pisco Sour" Bar in the Santiago Airport departure lounge has been reopened, so visitors departing that lovely country can fly home soothed by that incomparable tranquilizer. Two clear signs that Chile can and will recover.


So, life goes on in Chile. And so does DavesChile. Stay tuned.



Written in Leesburg, Virginia, on September 29, 2010.

MUSSELS - PART II

Mussels…Part II

Earlier, a posting on the subject of the mussel queried why this delicious shellfish appeared to be relegated to “second class” status in Chile, at least on the more fashionable home dining tables and restaurants in that country, and virtually ignored in writings of Chile’s leading poet, Pablo Neruda. That posting elicited some interesting comments from readers, an objection (correction) to my use of a specific scientific term, and some additional opinion about the perceived status of the mussel, all of which broadens and deepens our understanding of this tightly enclosed mollusk.First, the correction: I referred to the barnacles attaching to the shell of the mussel as a “parasitic” relationship. While barnacles do in fact in certain circumstances become parasitic to themselves and other organisms, that apparently is never the case when they attach to mussels. So, while barnacles as they grow may weigh down the mussel to which they are attached, and surely make them outwardly ugly and less appetizing to the eager consumer, they do no real harm to the mussel. In this case they are not parasites, just fellow travelers.

My wife, Ximena, after I posted “What’s Wrong with Mussels, Neruda?” reminded me that just before departing Chile this year in April, as we brought to a close our annual three-month adventure in Chile, we lunched at a new upscale restaurant in Santiago named Coquinaria, and they served a delicious sauté of mussels. I would order this meal again and again as long as they continue to prepare them a well as they did the day we ate there. I had stated I did not know of a good restaurant that featured or consistently offered mussels, but the Coquinaria is definitely one to be noted.

Also, I received a tentative endorsement from a respected commentator on Chilean food (Blog: Eating Chilean) of my suggestion that Chileans clearly discriminate against mussels when it comes to serving them at their best home table, for guests. Citing his Chilean wife’s reference to the mussel as “too common” (“muy ordinario”) to be served to important guests at an evening meal at home, he pretty much confirms the lowly status of mussels in formal Chilean dining.

And one of the readers of my blog, clearly one of the more intellectual readers, in an attempt to get Neruda off the hook, suggested that maybe Neruda was really a “closet mussel lover”, inclined to keep this as his little secret. She suggested that having exposed in his poetry so much about so many other things, he felt the need to keep private at least one personal craving: A love of mussels!! Well, I suppose that is possible, but I am not so quick to give Neruda a pass, especially since in the interim I found another famous Chilean writer who shows absolutely no qualms about extolling the virtues of the mussel: Isabel Allende.

As you might suspect, Allende gives away her feelings about the mussel in her typical clear and categorical way, in her tasty book “Aphrodite”. Specified as a memoir of the senses, or “erotic meanderings” (in her own words), this collection of writings about food and love includes, early on, reference to the key role mussels play as the final ingredient to be added in the preparation of “Panchita’s Curanto en Olla”. Panchita is Allende’s mother, and a “Curanto en Olla” is a kitchen-prepared version of the traditional mixture of seafood, pork, potatoes, and chicken, steamed in a hole in the ground layered on a bed of hot rocks and covered with wet seaweed. Similar in many ways to the traditional clambake in the USA, this concoction, “Curanto”, originates on the Island of Chiloe, and is served there and in several seafood restaurants in Puerto Montt and better yet in the neighboring seaside village of Pelluco. When you don’t have a hole in the ground filled with hot rocks, you can cook the whole thing in a large pot (hence, “Olla”), in the home.

Allende’s next reference to mussels again ignites my dismay that Neruda made no similar connection, when she states while describing the mussel, “In shape they recall female genitals; in Italy they are called cozza, one of several names for a very ugly woman.” Knowing Neruda, you have to wonder how he missed this.

Allende details several recipes in “Aphrodite” she claims are actually Panchita’s, that rely heavily on mussels: Mussels in marinara sauce, mussel chowder (“caldillo”), and as an important ingredient in fish soup and paella. Her recipe for seafood in cocktail sauce again emphasizes her view that “Mussels are visually very good…..appetizing, and easy to make”. But then, she adds to our suspicions about the status of mussels: “In Chile they are thought of as the oyster of the poor.” So again, there seems to be something “classist” about the treatment of mussels in Chile. They seem to be so similar to oysters in taste, but different in the way they are perceived. Is this based only on appearance? Or maybe they are so much cheaper than oysters that they have less appeal?

My interest in mussels is now even greater than before. My early disappointment with Neruda’s indifference has been counterbalanced by Allende’s more extensive attention to the virtues of mussels. There is much more we need to know about the Chilean mussel, its role in history and gastronomical potential in future diets in Chile and internationally. My search for important information about the Chilean mussel probably has been too narrowly focused up to now. Recently, while reading the Ancient Forest International book on “Chile’s Native Forests”, by Ken Wilcox, my interest was piqued by a reference to “...the Chonos people, a nomadic canoe culture of the northern fiords of Chilean Patagonia who greeted with compassion the plunderer of the new World. Their culture of dalcas, sealskins, fire, MUSSELS (emphasis mine), mushrooms, huts, harpoons, and the telling of tales around remote hot springs is lost forever.”

The Chonos were early shell gatherers in southeast Chiloe, who became culturally extinct by the late 18th century. Evidence of their customs and living habits are found in kitchen middens near Quellon at the southernmost end of the Pan-American Highway, in the Huildad Fjord, Yaldad Fjord and Compu sites. Maybe if we knew more about the Chonos, their culture, and their relationship with mussels we would understand better how mussels are perceived in modern Chile, and why.

So, I conclude this with the same proposition with which consultants like I often conclude our reports: We need more information! We will do more research on mussels, and the people who harvest, prepare, and eat them. To do so we must spend more time in Santiago’s restaurants, Chilean dining rooms, coastal fishing villages, seafood “picadas” throughout the country, and now, it would seem, southern Chiloe where the Chonos lived. I have just become aware, as I delve into the topic of the Chonos, of a new Chilean winery marketing under the name “Chono”. Based in Isla de Maipo, near Santiago, it is producing reportedly excellent Carmenere, Cabernet Sauvignon, and lately Syrah wine. We must research this discovery also. Maybe they make a wine that pairs especially well with a plate of Panchita’s “curanto en olla”.

I’ll need some ad honorem research assistants.


Written in McLean, Virginia, on July 17, 2010

What's Wrong with Mussels, Neruda?

WHAT’S WRONG WITH MUSSELS, NERUDA?

Pablo Neruda loved the sea, and wine, and food, and women. He wrote poems about almost everything, Odes to a beautiful nude, a fallen chestnut, the tomato, laziness, loneliness, gold, lemon, salt, insects, and a yellow bird. He so much loved the sea he had two of his three homes on the Chilean coast, one in Isla Negra, “There where the Waves Shatter”, where he could hear, smell, and taste the sea as its mist rolled in each evening (and where he is buried in a simple seaside grave); and another in Valparaiso where he could look down over the entire bay and vibrant port city from his study. He was so much into the sea, he wrote poems about a struggle between seamen and a huge octopus, the ocean, fish and a drowned man, waves, ships, an albatross, marine nights, tides, the fisherman, and even a large tuna in the market.


But there is something fishy about Neruda. He did not write about mussels, and he should have. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I love to eat mussels!) There are so many links between mussels and the other things Neruda liked and revered. Mussels (“choritos”, “cholgas”, and “choros” in Chilean Spanish) have always been the most common mollusk in seafood markets in Chile, the cheapest, and in a way the least appreciated. In many ways this tasty shellfish represents “el pueblo Chileno” that Neruda expressed so much concern about. In the wild, the mussel shell is somewhat rough, darker than other shellfish, often loaded down and pockmarked from parasites like small barnacles (“picoroco”), and huddled together in crowded communities valiantly searching for sustenance in the rocky tidal zones of the Chilean coast. Seems to me this would have been a perfect opportunity for Neruda to use the mussel as a metaphor for the tough but valiant, rich life of Chile’s struggling lower-class masses. But for some reason, he didn’t. I wonder why not.

Another puzzle when it comes to Neruda and mussels is that he did write about Brussels, but without mentioning mussels. Apparently, he was overtaken by solitude when he wrote “Bruselas”, and the last thing on his mind probably was mussels or any other seafood. But I can tell you, if you don’t tangle with a plate or two of “moules frites” in one of those welcoming restaurants along where the old canal brought boats loaded with fish into the St. Catherine area of the city, the “belly of Brussels”, you haven’t really experienced Brussels. So I still wonder about Neruda, and his mussels blind spot.

When I first lived in Chile in the late '70s, I worked with a young man, Enrique, who hailed from Arauco, a coastal town south of the large port city of Concepcion. Early in my stay in Chile, on one of our many working trips into the forested southern part of Chile, we spent a day in Arauco with Enrique’s family. Enrique, one of his brothers, and his father took me out along a dirt road, to a small wooden house perched on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It turned out to be the home of a fisherman and his family, and that day they were going to treat “El Gringo” to one of Chile’s most delicious mussels, the mid-sized “cholga”. The edible meat of some cholgas is very light in color, almost appetizing. But others go from orangish to mud dark, and raw, as these were, sitting there still slightly quivering after having their two shells so roughly separated, they did not immediately appear edible to me. I had not even seen these things before, much less let them pass my lips. But this day, under the influence of great social pressure, I was introduced to “cholgas a la ostra”…..raw mussels. Luckily, Enrique knew what I would need to begin forcing these thick globs of salty slime down my throat; wine, and lots of it. Helped along by accompanying gulps of cold white wine, and followed by bites of toasted bread, the smaller of these “cholgas” would eventually go down. I thought maybe I could help them down by biting them in half. Big mistake. It doesn’t help! My hosts saw I was struggling, and not wanting a sick gringo on their hands, they resorted to steaming a few of these mussels, making them much easier to swallow, but alas much less tasty than their raw siblings.

During my early years living in Chile there were several more encounters with Chilean mussels. On a visit to Puerto Montt, at the southern end of the Pan-American Highway, I remember being captivated by the strings of smoked mussels hanging by the hundreds in the open air seafood market. Then there was the time I was spending the weekend in Pelluhue with the Fernandez and Pedreros families, in Sra. Esperanza’s summer home that to this day sits majestically overlooking the Pacific Ocean (fortunately well above Tsunami level). That day my future brother-in-law Claudio arrived triumphantly carrying a whole burlap sack filled with huge “cholgas”, and we all set about to open them and horse them down with lemon and again, lots of cold white wine. Still not a favorite of mine, I faked eating several, but did get my share of the wine. As I recall this event, there was quite a line for the outhouse that night around 2 AM, but I was the exception. And there was the time Ximena and her sister Maria Paz went camping with my friend Dave (you’ll recognize him better as Flick) and me, along with Ximena’s aunt Angelica and my Peace Corps volunteer colleague and future uncle Charley, in Tolhuaca National Park. We had gone to this idyllic spot in the southern lake region to spend several days of hiking, fishing, and, well, doing what young people do. Mistakingly counting on our abilities to catch enough fish to eat, and not spending much time actually fishing, we had almost run out of food a couple of days prior to when we were going to be picked up and taken out of the park. Angelica found some canned mussels (the smaller “choritos” in this case), and made a soup with them. I guess it got us through the day, but I also recall the soup giving off a terrible smell while it was boiling, which may be why we have never again made soup out of canned mussels. We now know, however, that fresh mussels make a very good soup (“caldillo de choritos”).

I also have fond memories of outings we made on the weekends in Santiago, travelling by bus or Ximena’s family’s “Citroeneta”, up into the Arrayan Valley in the Andes, behind Santiago, where we would spend the day cooling off in the river, basking in the sun, drinking huge amounts of wine from straw-wrapped “garrafas”, grilling flank steak (“palanca”) on wood fires, and of all things, eating steamed mussels. We loved steaming mussels in wine in a simple pot over the fire on these outings, and we devoured them with gusto, some of us because of the taste (mostly the Chileans), and some of us because of the wine you needed to wash them down (mostly the gringos).

Over the years since those days when we were young and experimenting with most everything set in front of us, Chile has greatly developed the processing and marketing of many food products, including seafood, and I have eaten a whole lot of mussels. Jim Stuart, on his blog “Eating Chile”, informs us that Chileans consume only about 7 kilos of seafood per capita (half the world average), but has become the 8th most important exporter of seafood, exporting over ten times the amount of seafood they consume per capita. One area of acknowledged progress is the production, packaging, and export of mussels. As a result of overexploitation of mussels in the 1940s, efforts were made to establish cultivation, especially in the waters around the island of Chiloe. The first farmed mussels entered the market in the 1960s, reaching 60,000 tons in 2003, 85% of which were exported, mostly frozen or canned, to Europe. Advertisements for Chilean mussels include the ribbed mussel (“cholga”), blue mussel (“chorito”) and the giant mussel (“choro zapato”). Internationally, the Chilean mussel is well accepted (according to Jim Stuart) as a “delicious, clean, nutritious, environmentally sustainable and socially responsible seafood”. In fact, in the Washington, DC suburb supermarkets we can buy dinners of frozen Chilean mussels, in either tomato and garlic butter sauce or just garlic butter sauce. All you have to do is heat it up, and frankly, it’s not bad. Ximena has, for years, been renowned for her mussels. She prepares them with spaghetti, sautéed in olive oil and hot pepper, in the oven with parsley butter, and simply steamed with fresh tomato, garlic, onion, parsley, and white wine. The sauce that is produced in the latter is totally sinful.

While most of Chile’s seafood is being exported, Chileans do love certain seafood dishes. But it is interesting to note that while the mussel is a key ingredient to traditional dishes like the “curanto”, “empanadas de mariscos” and “arroz a la valenciana”, and while it is now one of the best known, most available, least expensive shellfish in the markets, it is not seen much in restaurants or served in Chilean homes. There are exceptions to this generality, and occasionally in wedding receptions or seafood restaurants in the central Santiago fish market and along Chile’s coast, you will find “choritos en salsa verde”, “sopa marina”, and an occasional cold salad with steamed mussels, but the “chorito” is not a broadly eaten food. In Arlington, Virginia, there is a very popular restaurant named Harry’s Tap Room that features 7 different mussel dishes, served much like they are in Brussels and Paris. I am unaware of any similar restaurant in Chile. You would think that Chileans, who are lightening fast to copy cultural trends and who predictably trace their roots back to Europe whether they actually go their or not, would jump on this opportunity to make an internationally prized food their own. But they aren’t. The mussel is nutritious, readily available, relatively inexpensive, and easy to prepare. But, with the exception of young, hip Chilean kids who refer to anything or anyone cool as “choro” (as in “ese gallo es rechoro”, i.e., “that guy is really cool”), Chileans continue to hold the mussel in low esteem..


So after all, Neruda ignored the mussel, and Chilean gastronomy seems to be following his lead and ignoring the mussel as well. Maybe Chileans simply do not like mussels, or maybe too many of them had early experiences like some of mine that make them distrusting of mussels. On the other hand, maybe this can be explained by some sort of broad reticence to embrace a food that is seen to be too “lower class”, in spite of its merits. What other explanation is there? Besides, I have heard the suggestion that Neftali Reyes Basoalto changed his name to Pablo Neruda for the same reason. Maybe I am on to something here. To figure this out, though, there will have to be much more field research. Any volunteers to assist me with that?

Written on June 27, 2010, in McLean, Virginia

Chile Walks with St. Anthony

CHILE WALKS WITH ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA

St. Anthony (San Antonio) seems to be in our lives a lot these days. I am not sure why this is, but maybe it is because St. Anthony was reportedly a saint “of the people”, and after all is said and done, we at times consider ourselves “The People”. I had no contact with this Saint growing up a Baptist (reticent) in upstate NY, but I ran into San Antonio right away in 1967 when I joined the Peace Corps and went to Chile. Chileans consider San Antonio de Padua to be the saint of lost items, which may be why as a newly arrived Peace Corps Volunteer (non-catholic at that) trying to find my bearings in this strange country, he entered into my consciousness. Often seen holding a child in his arms, this Franciscan teacher who died at the age of 36 is very popular in Chile. Calle San Antonio cuts through the center of downtown Santiago, very close to important landmarks for Peace Corps volunteers in Chile in the late 1960s: The PC Regional Office on the Alameda, Auerbach’s second floor German restaurant where we ate so many lunches, and historical Cerro Santa Lucia, where Pedro de Valdivia founded the city of Santiago in 1541. Not far from where San Antonio crosses the Alameda, there are two San Antonio Churches, one on Calle Carmen, the other on Calle Santiago Concha. In the Fine Arts Museum, there is an interesting painting by Chilean painter Claudio Bravo, entitled “Tentaciones de San Antonio” that, should you bother to see it, is sure to test your feelings about San Antonio, temptation, and Claudio Bravo!

Of course San Antonio is also the name of the major Chilean port, so important for shipping the increasing amount of fresh agriculture exports, especially fruit and wine, to North America and Asia. An imposing, fantastically simple but impressive statue of San Antonio de Padua looks over this port city, where we have always gone willingly to purchase (and consume) fresh seafood. It is also where a Peace Corps colleague and friend, Peter, worked closely for years with artisan fishermen and now runs a successful seafood processing plant. He sends frozen fish and other seafood around the world from San Antonio.

Close by, in the rural town of Chepica, sits the ruins of San Antonio de Chepica church, totally destroyed by the February 27 earthquake that struck so much of this area of Chile. There are plans to rebuild the classic white adobe church, possibly with a very modern structure that, if they do it, so reflects Chile’s drive to not only recover from the destruction of the earthquake but to push Chile into the 21st Century as a developed economy. There are surely other notable reflections of San Antonio de Padua throughout Chile, and I only recently became aware of the 18 year old “Carnaval de San Antonio de Padua”, apparently a colorful two-day festival held in the south-central part of Santiago, near the Franklin neighborhood. I had never heard mention of his festival until I read about it recently on a blog “Revolver”, Santiago Magazine, but now that I have, it is on our “must do” list for the near future.

As fate would have it (I am inclined to tag fate for a lot of what is happening these days, not having a very good alternative explanation), Ximena and I found ourselves face-to-face with San Antonio twice recently, but it was in the US. The first encounter was during a 3-day reunion with my Peace Corps group in, you guessed it, San Antonio, Texas (See earlier posting on this blog “Peace Corps, Texas, and LBJ”, and stay tuned for another posting on this subject coming soon). Shortly after this brush with San Antonio and its Missions, the entertaining riverwalk, the San Antonio River, and Texas hill country, we were in Cortland, New York, on the weekend of June 10-12, 2010, where we unexpectedly again ran into San Antonio de Padua. We were attending a three day “Celebration of Life” marking our good friend Catherine’s 60th birthday, during which our eclectic group of old friends, who have known
Catherine and who have worked together with Catherine when she was Executive Director of the World Food Program, shared fond memories, good music, and the best of New York cuisine including some very good Cayuga Lake wines. From Thursday evening to Saturday night this weekend, while our group of about 150 loosely related disciples of the fight to eliminate global poverty through humanitarian action were celebrating our accomplishments and our friendships, and renewing our commitment to global humanitarian action, the citizens of Cortland were celebrating St. Anthony’s feast day.

This is a wonderful event that culminates a weekend of celebration in downtown Cortland, centered around the Saint Anthony’s church on Pomeroy Street, smack in the middle of a vibrant historically Italian neighborhood. The festival seems to have begun around 1905, and to this day includes lots of traditional Italian food, wine, music, games, dancing, charity fund raising and evening fireworks. The festival culminates each year on the Sunday closest to June 13, St. Anthony’s official feast date, with a mass in the crowded St. Anthony’s church replete with the flying of large Italian Provincial banners, singing by a young boys choir all dressed as Franciscan Monks, and many, many Italian flags, followed by a procession with a statue of St. Anthony through the streets of Cortland. A truly beautiful expression of civic and ethnic pride.

To top off our “Celebration of Life”, our group had been chosen by the organizers of the St. Anthony Festival as special guests to participate in the St. Anthony Day procession on Sunday morning. We formed our group at 9:00 AM in front of the Green Arch Restaurant, around the corner from the church, along with the twenty-plus member Cortland Old Timer’s Band. This fantastic community band, which practices every Wednesday evening throughout the year and performs for several civic events, includes our clarinet-playing “Celebration of Life” hostess Catherine and her professional jazz trumpet player brother Charlie, and one of those fantastic bass drums rolled along on a one-man pull cart. As the mass ended with the boys dressed as Franciscan monks singing an Italian hymn originating from Ferrazzano in the Molisse Province of Italy, our group followed the band into the church, flags waving, and everyone singing.

Immediately after the mass ended, our group of “international visitors” formed a group, with our national and institutional flags flying, behind the Old Timer’s Band, the statue of St. Anthony, and the young boys Franciscan monk choir. In spite of threatening rain, this group wound our way through the streets of the Italian south-side of Cortland, a real spectacle…banners representing the United Nations, World Food Program, Rice University, State of New York, City of Chicago, and national flags of USA, Italy, Mexico, Cameroons, Ireland, and yes….CHILE. Some less-travelled onlookers commented on our “Texas flag”, but we set them straight as to the important distinctions. First I, then Ximena, waved the Chilean flag high throughout the entire procession, for St. Anthony and all of Cortland, New York, to appreciate. We tied with Thomas, our good friend from Cameroons who is now the Regional Director for the World Food Program in West Africa, for having the flag representing the country located farthest from Cortland.

The procession took two rest stops during the one-hour trek through the streets, at which the band played, and we were served Italian foods (hot sausage and fried green peppers on Italian bread, traditional Italian sweets like almond shortbread cookies, and of course, lots of coffee laced with Sambuca (Anisette, in this case). On-lookers waved and cheered us, and we waved and cheered them back. The procession ended in front of a neighborhood bakery, where the owners had prepared pans of pizza just like what you can get in the Roman streets, to be washed down with vino rosso. The coup de grace was a pot of soup made with beans, cabbage and hot Italian
sausage. Having indulged in all the camaraderie and nourishment of the moment, and seeing that St. Anthony was going back into his home on Pomeroy St., we decided to depart Cortland, NY, and move on to our next adventure. But in the future, we won’t be able to see St. Anthony, nor Chile’s many San Antonios, without reflecting on the day we were part of Cortland New York’s celebration of deep civic pride, along side our old friends and colleagues from the humanitarian relief community who celebrated life on that weekend in June 2010.

Written in Mclean, VA, on June 19, 2010.

Will John Get His Groove Back

Will John Get His Groove Back?*

I love music. I have always been a singer….church, high school chorus and special pops group called the Varitones, in the shower, and late at night in bars. I love to sing El Rey, On the Road Again, Scotch and Soda. Well yes, I’m 66. I also could play band instruments…trumpet and baritone horn, and once in a Christmas play in high school I played the xylophone. When I was about 9 years old, my mother wanted me to be an accomplished piano player, and I was forced to take piano lessons for about 6 years, while my friends played baseball outside where I could hear them yelling and laughing. I wanted so badly not to take piano lessons that I made a deal with my mother: Instead of taking piano lessons, I would wash the dinner dishes every night at home. No end date for this deal was agreed to, so I suppose if I had not moved out of the house to go to college, I would still be washing the dinner dishes. But, unfortunately, I did move out, and I still cannot play the piano.

All through high school and college, I envied friends and anyone else who could play the piano, or better yet, the guitar. How I would have loved to play the guitar. But I didn’t. I tried to learn, once, but did not practice anywhere nearly enough to even progress a bit. So I lived vicariously off others, who knew how to play the guitar. This wasn’t very satisfying, because I did not have many guitar-playing friends….until I joined the Peace Corps in 1967 and met John. John came from West Virginia, and he joined the same group of future Peace Corps volunteers I was in, and we all went to Chile. When it came to music and the guitar John was everything the rest of us wished we were…he was a star. He could play anything and everything. If there was enough pisco and red wine, he could play Chilean Cuecas and tonadas (my favorites), Mexican Rancheros, Argentine Tangos, Spanish classical songs, Brazilian Sambas, and country western of all types. One of his favorites was a Hank Williams tune, “Lovesick Blues”. John spent a lot of time learning new songs, and to the amazement of the rest of us, he would start playing and seem to never stop. He lived in the Chilean campo, where others played the guitar and sat around nights playing, making up songs, and learning new songs. Chileans thought he was Chilean, Argentines thought he was Argentine, and Brazilians thought he was Brazilian when he sang songs from their countries. Gringos, though, knew he was a gringo through and through when he sang his repertoire of Elvis favorites.

John paid my bride-to-be, Ximena, and me the highest of complements in 1970, in Santiago, Chile, at Ximena’s home at 135 General Bari Street, when he played and sang for four hours at our engagement party, never repeating any song during the entire evening. After we left Chile in 1970 to return to the US to attend graduate school, John stayed on in Chile, and became among other things a cowboy and cattle farmer, an English teacher, and a Peace Corps Volunteer trainer. He kept playing the guitar and would liven up any and all events, as long as there was pisco and vino tinto….and a guitar.

Eventually, John returned to the US, got a job that took him to Philadelphia, Brussels, and then Miami, and along the way he married the very lovely and talented Blanca, who can sing better than John, and is a hell of a lot better looking. We met off and on, but not regularly enough to know for certain what it was that led to a slow decline in John’s frequency (and some would say, quality) of guitar playing. We held some early reunion of our Peace Corps group, and visited John and Blanca at their home in Miami, and they visited ours over the years, and each time we would sing to John’s guitar. But it began to be obvious that John was spending his time doing other things. It got to the point, sadly during our reunion in Vichuquen, Chile, in 2007, that John’s guitar hardly loosened up…we did (there is always pisco and vino tinto), but his guitar did not. This was a very disappointing situation, but the rest of us who had never come close to having the musical talent of John, had to remain silent. We could not express our disappointment at the realization that the calluses on Johns fingers were from something other than practicing and playing the guitar; a golf club maybe, the steering wheel of his car, or his wine glass. So when the next reunion of our Peace Corps group rolled around at Tom and Susan’s place in Clinton, New York, there was not even a guitar in the house, as I recall.

However, this Chile-27 Peace Corps group does not give up easily, especially when it comes to our most talented member. We arranged to have another reunion in San Antonio, Texas, in late May of 2010. The theme: Texas food and MUSIC! We sat in bars with music, hotels with jazz, restaurants with guitar players….everything we could possibly arrange to drown our short time in San Antonio with the music we, especially John, really like. Then, and this is the kicker, A couple of us, including John and Blanca, planned a three-day post-reunion visit to Texas Hill Country, specifically Fredericksburg.

Fredericksburg hosts a small, intimate, relatively rustic Rathskeller, located in the basement of a building on the main street. We were now a much smaller group than the one that met in San Antonio, so the first night in Fredericksburg we ate at the Rathskeller, mainly to avoid the crowds and big groups of tourists at the Brewery. They sat us right next to an unoccupied stool, microphone, and two big speakers, and as we sat down John asked our waitress “There’s not going to be some loud singer ruining our dinner if we sit here, is there?” Well, right behind the waitress was the singer John feared, who smiled, acknowledged politely the admonition from John, took up his position on the stool, and sang lovely familiar songs (some would say “classic rock”) the rest of the evening so pleasantly that we ordered, ate our sauerbraten, German potato salad and sausages and lingered long into the evening enjoying the singer, his songs, and the locals who came and went while we watched. After that, I could tell John was a bit more reflective than he had been so far.

This visit to Texas Hill country was well planned. Right down the road from our very rustic B&B rests Luckenbach, Texas, where “everyone is somebody”, and where all young country singers start out and where the old ones come back to die. Willie and George played here together recently, but they are never scheduled, they just show up and the scheduled performers move over. On our second day in Fredericksburg, Ximena and Blanca wanted to go to a small town named Boerne, about a half hour from Fredericksburg, to visit some antique shops, so on our way we drove through Luckenbach just to check it out. If you have never been to Luckenbach, and plan a visit, make sure you keep your expectations of the size of the “town” low. A post office in a country store, a dance hall made out of a barn, a parking lot for motorcycles, a rough stage, a grove of trees with some picnic tables, and lots of folkloric locals, roosters and Lone Star beer. Our first impression of the place was something like muted wonderment but we drove on to Boerne with the plan to return to Luckenbach closer to “darkdown”, which someone told us is about the same time as sundown.

When we got to Boerne, I could tell something was still bugging John. He seemed a bit more nervous than before, so while the ladies shopped, John and I strolled up and down the street until we came to an antique emporium, on the side of which was a sign that read “Guitar Shop”. Clearly that is where John wanted to go, so we sauntered into the Emporium and up the back steps towards the Guitar Shop. As we got close, we heard someone strumming a guitar. We entered and introduced ourselves to Bob who owns the shop and teaches guitar there. He explained, slowly, ever so slowly, that he teaches, sings at any event he is invited to, but mostly gets his satisfaction from singing for the aged. “Otherwise empty eyes sparkle when I play my music”, he told us, “There ain’t nothin’ more satisfying than bringing that kind of pleasure to folks who have paid their dues, earned their keep, and are waiting to rest.” I told Bob that John used to play the guitar better than anyone I knew, and I told Bob how John played 4 hours without repeating a song at my engagement party back in 1970 in Santiago, Chile. Joining in the spirit of sharing, John explained how he didn’t play much anymore, given the amount of work, raising a family, and other things that got in the way. John and Bob talked about Willie, George, Hank, Merle, and their songs. We even sang a few with Bob, as he played.

It was a fun, relaxing moment, that lasted quite awhile before we were discovered by Blanca and Ximena, but as is the way things go, we were discovered, so we prepared to leave Bob and his guitar shop. He was playing the song he had been practicing when we arrived: “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay”, by Otis Redding, but as we left he stopped playing, looked John straight in the eye and said “Son, if you are half as good a guitar player as your buddy here says you are, you are badly wasting a precious God-given talent. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Well, we small-talked our way out of Boerne (I could tell John was thinking, or something that looks and feels a lot like thinking), and drove back to our B&B. When we got there, John stated with a great deal of certainty that he would be departing for Luchenback at 6 PM and anyone else who wanted to go was welcome. I had told him I definitely was going, but the ladies had expressed doubts when they saw the place the first time we stopped. They had overcome any qualms they might have had, put on their skin-tight blue jeans, and we all went. The night we were there, Tuesday after Memorial Day, there were not a lot of people. But, the local performers were already entertaining a small group of Danish, Dutch, and Belgian tourists, and an eclectic gathering of music lovers and folks apparently with no other place to go. It was great. We drank a few beers, bought T-shirts, took pictures of the Luckenbach bar, and listened to a few songs, a toothless storyteller, and a young foxy lady who sang some sweet tunes so softly we could hardly hear her. All the while several roosters were crowing from the rooftops and moving into the treetops where they have to be situated, apparently, by “darkdown”.

I don’t know exactly what I was doing at the time, because every now and then it was necessary to go to the bar for another Lone Star, but I looked up and to my surprise saw my good friend John, up with the performers, taking a guitar out of the owner’s hands, and he quickly tuned up and began to play. He belted out his favorite Hank Williams songs, to the loud acclaims of the entire audience (and several rooters), gave the guitar back to its owner, came back to our table and stated, with an ear-to-ear grin, “OK, We can go now!!”



We went back to our B&B, sat together in wooden chairs out in a lovely lookout spot, and watched the sun set on Texas hill country to the tune of a bottle of good Chilean tinto. As the orange sun set over a typical scene of Texas mesquite and post oak trees, John was as relaxed as I had seen him in a long, long time.

The last I heard on this issue, several days later (and this comes from a reliable source, Blanca) is that John has taken his guitar out of the closet, and has been heard “talking” to someone named Bob. Let’s hope so.

*Most of this story is absolutely true, but not every detail. The reader is free to decide which is which.

Written on June 7, 2010, in Mclean, Virginia.

Peace Corps, Texas and LBJ

Peace Corps, Texas and LBJ

Sometimes I wonder what the last 40 years of my life has been all about, what I might have done differently….what might have been. This wondering is usually nothing more than a meandering of thoughts, brought back to reality by bills to pay, doctor’s appointments to worry about, and lots of friends and a lovely family to be with. But recently an unlikely event brought an unusual degree of clarity to me on where I have been, and why. This event was a reunion of 16 members of the Chile27 Peace Corps group that arrived in Chile in late 1967 (and 7 spousal gems found after leaving Peace Corps service). This group has had several reunions, including one in 2007 in Chile to commemorate 40 years since our introduction to each other, to service, and to the lovely country and people of Chile.

San Antonio, Texas, was chosen as the site for this reunion in 2010, hosted by Jane and Neal, who joined the Peace Corps as a married couple and who returned to Houston to raise a family. They love Texas, country music, Mexican culture, and Lone Star beer, and they have attended every reunion the group has held. For some of us who were single volunteers in Chile, Jane and Neal were (and in a way still are) kind of like our parents….a bit older, rather stable in their relationship, and comforting when times were tough (Jane made a smashing southern fried chicken). So the theme of our 2010 reunion in San Antonio was more or less Texas/Mexican food, Texas music, and renewed camaraderie on the Riverwalk.

For three days we talked, walked, visited the Missions outside of the city (the fully restored San Jose mission was especially interesting), heard how “defeat” can really be “victory” at the Alamo, drank way too many margaritas and Lone Star beers (well, I guess we still agree you can never have TOO many), and shared our pasts and our presents during several wonderful dinners. Around the pool at the hotel, in the breakfast room, and, when all else failed, in Jane and Neal’s room where the Chilean pisco and vino had been stashed, we talked about our kids and grandkids, our accomplishments, past adventures and planned trips.

We silently and sadly remembered our departed buddies Jaime and Charlie.

This was a lot like past reunions, really, except this one began to feel different to me. There was more talk about the folks we worked with and knew in Chile. We expressed desires to get back to see the ones who are still alive, and concerns about how the big earthquake in February might have affected them and their families. There was lots of talk about what we did as volunteers and we discussed the same concerns about the role of the Peace Corps in general and the US role in Chilean politics, then and now. Someone even suggested we should all join up again as Pc volunteers, but we concluded that probably we could neither pass the physical exam nor live on $95/month again. But what really made this reunion different for me was the combination of the three-day discussion with my longtime Peace Corps colleagues of 40 years, many of whom are to this day my very best and closest friends, followed by a subsequent three day visit to Texas Hill country about an hour or so to the northwest of San Antonio.

Settled by German immigrants, the area around Fredericksburg, Texas, welcomes visitors with good beer, great sausages, and very comfortable Bed and Breakfast lodging. But more importantly, it is a stone’s throw from Luckenbach (“where everyone is someone”), and the LBJ ranch. Our visit to the latter of these landmarks created in me a deep understanding of the issues we all grappled with as young Peace Corps volunteers in Chile, and still, as we begin to see “The light at the end of the tunnel” of our lives.

The LBJ National Historical Park includes LBJ’s birthplace, the small single room schoolhouse in which he first taught as a young educator and where the Headstart legislation was signed and first Headstart program initiated, the cemetery where LBJ, “Lady Bird”, and relatives are buried, and the Ranch (Summer Whitehouse) itself. You can’t visit these landmarks without remembering the excitement of LBJ’s attempts to create the “Great Society”, ideas and ideals that motivated, in part, our interest in joining the Peace Corps, learning about other cultures, and service. The birthplace, the cemetery, the schoolhouse, and especially the LBJ ranch are all expressions of modesty, simplicity, and down-home values. I was reminded why LBJ is, to this day, the US President in my lifetime I most associate with. As we visited this place, I couldn’t help thinking way back to the late 1970’s, realizing that this is what our Peace Corps service was about. We were motivated by the desire to help others, and grow as global citizens ourselves in the process.

But after reviewing, reliving, and lauding LBJ’s landmark social programs, our tour CD broke the spell and reminded us of the other side of LBJ’s administration, and the unavoidable other dimension to our Peace Corps service….the Viet Nam war. And I was forced to admit that even my favorite President was way away from perfect. Many of us had few options as we left college in 1967. It was either military service (and surely action in southeast Asia), or one of the legitimate alternative service or educational options, of which Peace Corps service was one. The Viet Nam war brought LBJ’s political life, and with it many of his worthy programs and goals, to a quick end, as well as a worse and final fate for so many of our brothers, friends, and young fellow Americans (and Vietnamese). Sad, but true, peaceful social change, international development and understanding, and our lives fell victim to the bipolar confusion of creating the Great Society and executing the Viet Nam war.

LBJ’s life-long partner, Lady Bird, exercised subtle but powerful influence over her husband, and over our society. Her legacy wildflower program came from a heartfelt desire to share the beauty of her Texas home with everyone she could. This expression of her desire to give, rather than to take, endures today, and a visit to the wildflower Seed Farm down the road between the LBJ ranch and Fredericksburg is a visual memorial to this wonderful lady. There is a bedroom pillow at the LBJ ranch embroidered with words that happily link Lady Bird with me and my Peace Corps group:

“I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty. I awoke and found that life was duty.”


As I gather together all I heard from my Peace Corps colleagues during our reunion in San Antonio, their successes in business, their personal lives, trials and tribulations (and there have been many) their plans and late-life dreams, I can’t help but conclude that we will always be balancing our desires for peace, a healthy educated world, and prosperity all around, with the reality of our “need” (or is it “fate”) to go to war, sapping our strength, our treasure, and our idealism in the process. But for a week in late spring, in Texas, a group of wonderful people, friends all, shared thoughts about our time in Chile as Peace Corps volunteers, a time and place in our lives when we chose Peace.

Written on June 7, 2010, in McLean, Virginia.