When my host family and I ate empanadas during my first Sunday in Chile, I was in love — with my hosts, but also with the bready, cheesy goodness of Chile’s national food. When we ate empanadas during my second Sunday, I was overjoyed.

Now that I’ve been here for almost two months, my stomach growls when I think of Empanada Sundays. I’m like Pavlov’s dog, except way more excited when the bell rings.

Not every Chilean family spends their Sundays like my hosts, but relaxing with family and a good meal has been a staple in my experience in South America.

The little baked delicacies—small slices of heaven—come in many variations, but they’re always cheesy and delicious. My favorite is the “napolitana” with cheese, ham and tomato inside. The Chilean specialty is called “pino” and it has beef, onions, raisins, black olives and hard-boiled eggs.

Bonding with my host family is the only thing better than the empanadas on Empanada Sundays. My family here consists of my “mother,” a theater design professor, my “father,” an architect, my 25-year-old “brother,” a professional clown and student of natural medicine and my 29-year-old “sister,” a radio talk-show host who doesn’t live with us.

Our normal routine is to take a 10-minute walk to an empanada store and buy two empanadas per person, as my hosts and I haven’t made them. This is the only meal my family doesn’t cook because they said the process is rather long.

This tradition of relaxing Sundays was stronger in Cuenca, Ecuador, where I spent a month for the first leg of SU Abroad’s program. There, my host family and I would drive about 40 minutes to their homestead in the countryside to spend the day with the entire extended family and eat a huge lunch.

Even on my first day in Cuenca, I was whisked off to the countryside moments after meeting my host mother. About 20 relatives were gathered in the house they use just for Sunday gatherings. I greeted everyone with a kiss on the cheek, as is customary in Ecuador and Chile. This was my first time speaking with native Spanish speakers. My first “relaxing Sunday” was more of a “sink or swim” language immersion experience.

Downtown Cuenca turns eerie on Sundays. The central plaza, which is normally full of people, was empty. The only people walking around were tourists and “gringos,” people from the United States. All the locals were most likely enjoying lunch with their families.

Lunches are the most important and largest meal in Ecuador, Chile and most of South America. The lunches are so large that rather than dinner, Chileans have “once” (pronounced “on-say”). “Once” takes place sometime between 8–10 p.m. My family has tea, bread and sometimes fruit if they’re really hungry.

During my second night with my host family, I was waiting around for dinner until about 10 p.m. After working up a real appetite, I went to my host mom to ask if dinner was soon. Apparently the tea we shared earlier in the night was our “dinner.” I explained to her the United States concept of dinner. We shared a good laugh and had some more tea as I ate a little dinner.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t an empanada.

Danielle Roth is a junior majoring in magazine journalism and international relations. She is following her desires for good food and adventure in Santiago, Chile. Email her at dlroth@syr.edu or tweet at her @danielleroth_ .

Published on September 16, 2014 at 12:01 am