Many of us have heard the horror stories, weeks of traveling in South America, subsisting solely on french fries and bread.

"Calapurca is an ancient dish dating to the pre-Columbian Andean cultures," explains anthropologist Sonia Montecino in her book La Olla Deleitosa ("The Delightful Pot").

In his book Apuntes para la historia de la cocina chilena*, Chilean historian Eugenio Periera Salas tells us that "the empanada has featured in Spanish gastronomy since the eighth century, and was a common food in Europe."

Cazuela is a soup containing meat - beef, chicken, turkey, pork or lamb - potatoes, corn, green beans, carrot, pepper, spices, and some type of thickener like chuchoca (corn meal) or rice.

In her book La olla deleitosa ("The Delightful Pot"), Chilean anthropologist Sonia Montecino describes a traditional Chilean dish known as curanto:

When the Spanish conquerors saw charqui for the first time, they stared suspiciously at the grayish-colored strips of dehydrated meat, whose texture resembled cardboard or leather.

When Chileans talk about kuchen, they usually mean the fruity, crumble-topped Germanic cake, of which Apfelkuchen ("apple cake" in German) is the most well-known variety.