[Kitchen Talk]Poetic gifts from distant Chilean shores

Chilean Ambassador Adolfo Carafi relaxes at his residency in Hannam-dong. By Jeong Chi-ho

What would we not do to get a Nobel Prize, eh? I mean a real one. Not the peace version that comes with the whole political enchilada. To learn that Chile, a nation of roughly 16 million people, has not one but already two, all in the literature department, was quite a surprise. It makes you wonder what sort of environment could foster such creative minds.

A glance at the map is revealing. Chile has a wide array of climatic types all within the same border. From the Atacama Desert to glaciers in the south of the country, you can have it all. With such a range of climate, food ingredients should be plenty at hand. Surely, another great food idea for this column. A call to the Chile Embassy in Seoul gets me a sit down with Chilean Ambassador Adolfo Carafi at his residency in Yongsan District’s Hannam-dong.

The lunch starts with a king crab appetizer, reminding me that Chile’s tremendously long coastline (4,700 kilometers, 2,920 miles) exposes the country to the Pacific Ocean’s rich seafood treasure. Then comes an avocado salad. The avocado has been shelled and filled with slices of chicken and paprika. The main course is an oven-baked dish that also contains chicken.

Pumpkin sopaipillas drenched in caramelized brown sugar.

Ambassador Carafi, who has been in Korea for almost four years, confessed that his new cook is only two months into the job and needed some time to hone his skills.

But I am only half listening. My mind is already drifting to Santiago where I imagine a full blown Chilean meal would be an excellent treat.

But back to reality. The dessert, sopaipillas, is a concoction of pumpkin and brown sugar. Ambassador Carafi apologizes again for his cook. No apologies needed. Not when you know you have something original in front of you and you know you can’t taste it anywhere else on the entire Korean Peninsula, because there are no Chilean restaurants.

Did I mention the wine that helped me to gulp down all the food? Last time I checked Chile was in the upper echelon of the top ten wine exporting countries in the world and Chilean wine has taken off big time here. I have to admit I am no wine guru but even I know the Montes Alpha wine brand, seeing it on virtually every restaurant menu.

Ambassador Carafi has noticed it too. “I was surprised that in my first year here whenever I introduced myself, everybody told me how they had tasted Montes Alpha or other Chilean wines,” said the ambassador. Jokingly he added, “I think the Chilean wine is the best ambassador.”

Chile might be a far away country from our shores but its history is a reflection of our own. Once a Spanish colony, declaring its independence in 1810, the country was ruled by a long military regime under Augusto Pinochet that lasted almost two decades. Chile later returned to democracy and transformed itself into a market-driven economy while carving a place in the world economy through its export-oriented industries in the 1970s.

Sound familiar? Free trade seems to have helped. “We developed free trade agreements at the beginning of the 1990s and started the negotiating process with Korea in 1997,” said Chile’s top envoy.

Today, Chile has more than 56 free trade agreements in place, a record, and Ambassador Carafi played a pivotal role as the director of Asia Pacific affairs in signing Korea’s first free trade agreement with another country - Chile - in 2003. Chile is currently negotiating with Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, and has set its sights on Israel.

King crab appetizer.

“We are very separated from the main markets. That is why we have open national policies such as a free visa system,” said the ambassador. “We decided to make this a national policy because we knew that we could no longer produce goods for a small domestic market and be competitive in every area.” Under such a philosophy, close to 90 percent of Chile’s trade comes from FTAs.

The Chile contingent in Korea is small, the reason the ambassador desires more exchanges. “We need more knowledge exchange between our countries. What we need is a link between our citizens,” the ambassador said. “That is why we would like to start a program next year for about 50 Chilean students to come here annually and study at Korean colleges, especially in engineering.”

Before I face off with an ambassador, I do a crash course on the target country and I was struck by the similarities between the diplomatic and economic development of the two nations. So when Ambassador Carafi said, “We really admire Korea’s economic and democratic development. It’s a model,” I know he means what he’s saying. In fact, Chile was the first country in Latin America to acknowledge Korea as a sovereign country in 1949.

Great landscapes and cuisine are the best recipe for an attractive tourist location. Yet, due to the distances, Chile may not be a prime destination for Koreans. But there are other ways to get a taste of Chile, apart from through wine and tourism. Try reading “Your Feet” by Chilean Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda. I know this is the age of the Internet but I still remember days when love letters were written with a pen on paper. Allow yourself to be inspired by the following and write a real letter to someone you love:

Chicken and paprika avocado salad.

“...But I love your feet only because they walked upon the earth and upon the wind and upon the waters, until they found me.”

What a gift from Chile to the world.

By Brian Lee Staff Reporter [africanu@joongang.co.kr]