Churrasco, Stone Soup, Empanada (1917)

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MISC.:  I'll have to go to Washington on Monday to get two visas.  I'll also be at the Library of Congress, if anyone wants anything.

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VAGABONDING DOWN THE ANDES:
BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY, CHIEFLY AFOOT, FROM PANAMA TO BUENOS AIRES
by Harry A. Franck
New York: The Century Company
1917

   OED has 1939 and 1949 for "churrasco."  There are over 162,000 Google hits.
   I finally got the the NYPL to finish this book.  It's one of Franck's longest (over 600 pages) and best.  You've got to love the Quichua bread recipe on page 255.  I'll also add the long "stone soup" (see ADS-L archives) on pages 396-397.


Pg. 255:  Amid the culinary operations suited to my case they gave me in detail the recipe of the _choclo tandas_--Quichua bread, probably used before the Conquest--that finally rounded off the repast late in the evening.  Forthe benefit of housewives permit me to pass on the information:
   Cut off the kernels of green corn while still small and fairly soft.  Crush them to a pulp--under a round stone on a broad flat one out beneath the thatches eaves, if it desired to keep the local color intact--sprinkling water lightly on the mass from time to time.  WHen the whole has been reduced to a somewhat adhesive dough, wrap in cornhusks rolls of the stuff about the size and shape of an ear of corn and tie with strips of husk.  Sit down on the earth floor in a corner of the hut--driving off the persistent guinea-pigs with any weapon at hand--and drop these packages one by one into a kettle of boiling water supported by three stones.  Let boil from twenty minutes to a half hour--depending on the energy with which fagots have been gathered during the day--taking care that none of the gaunt curs prowling about between the legs of the cook and through other unexpected openings thrust their noses into the kettle, as they would be sure to be burned.  Those who succeed in beginning the task while daylight still lingers should also beware any of the family chickens climbing to a convenient shoulder and springing in to the pot, as this would result, not in choclo tanda, but in _choclo tanda con gallina_, which is a far more expensive dish.

Pg. 264:  The first price covers a dozen delicacies, such as "patitas con arroz--pigs' feetlets with rice," fried brains, liver, or _chupe_, the Irish-stew of the Andes.

Pg. 288:  ...He prepared me a half-dozen _obleas_,--those saucer-shaped capsules of the Andean pharmacopoeia--of bismuth, prescribed a diet of _chochoca molida_--the Quichua-Spanish name for a thin cornmeal gruel--which might be substituted by chuno ingles, a sickly-sweet liquid starch--or wheat or rice soup, and assured me that I would be completely recovered in the morning.

Pg. 308:  This _chuno_--_chunu_, in Quichua--is the chief vegetable of Andean market-places and the principal food of the Indians of the Sierra.

Pg. 325:  ...unless it be some rare local delicacy, such as _asado de chivito_,--roast leg of young goat.

Pg. 345:  Here _cancha_, or toasted, ripe, shelled corn did duty as bread, and each helping of beef was flanked by boiled _chuno_, or small, frozen potatoes.  Then there were _camotes de la sierra_, one of the several species of the potato family unknown in other lands, a soft, sweetish, mushy tuber of the shape of a large peanut, which it was a la mode to pick from the plate with the fingers, and dip before each bite into the general bowl of _aji_, the Incaic peppers so beloved of the ancient Peruvians.

Pg. 356:  The poncho-clad proprietor proceeded with fitting gravity to serve me a thoroughly (Pg. 357--ed.) peruvian meal, of which the chief ingredient was a _churrasco_, or steak, not of beef, as I at first fancied, but of llama, a favorite Huancavelican dish which would not exactly win the unstinted praise of an epicure.
   ("You want Mcllama with that?"--ed.)

Pg. 396:  There runs an Andean anecdote that well illustrates this characteristic.  one of their own race, who had served in the army and learned other things without forgetting the ways of his own people, came at night to an Indian hut and requested lodging.  When this was granted in the customary manner--merely by not being refused--he asked for food.
   "Manam cancha," came the expected reply.
   "Well, sell me something and I will cook for myself."
   "Manam cancha."
   The soldier was well aware that there were plenty of supplies hidden away in the hut.  He knew, also, the Indian temperament.
   "Well, I suppose I'll have to get along on a chupe de guijarros," he sighed, using Spanish to make his speech more impressive.
   "A stone soup!" mumured the household, betrayed by astonishment into understanding a tongue they pretended not to know.
   "Yes, it is what we use in the army when there is nothing better."
   He wandered down to the mountain stream below the hut and, returning with a dozen large smooth pebbles, washed them carefully, and laid them out on his bundle.
   "You won't mind lending me an olla?" he murmured to the wall of expressionless faces about him.
   A woman brought the kettle in silence.  The soldier, huming a barrack-room ballad, half-filled the pot with water, set it over the fire, dropped in the stones one by one, and squatted on his heels with a sigh of contentment.  By and by he borrowed a wooden spoon and tasted the concoction from time to time, throwing the residue back into the kettle in approved Andean fashion.
   "You don't happen to have a bit of salt?" he murmured, after a time, to the family now gathered close around him watching this possible miracle silently but intently.
   "Cachi?  That we have," said the woman, handing him a piece of purple rock, which he beat up and sprinkled into the now steaming pot.
   "Too bad I haven't a few potatoes to put in," he droned, as if to himself, "it would help the flavor."
   The old woman shambled away into the darkness of a far corner, and came back some time later to thrust silently toward him a handful of small potatoes, her eyes glued on the miraculous pot.  When these were about half-boiled the soldier again broke off his song to mumur:
   "This is going to be one of the finest chupes de guijarros I've ever made.  All it lacks now is a bit of aji to give it life."
Pg. 397:
    The old woman muttered something to one of the ragged girls beside her, and the latter went to dig two red peppers out of the thatch.
   "A piece of cabbage would make it perfect," sighed the soldier.
   The Indians, too engrossed in the production of a stone soup, and too slow of mind to have caught up yet with the course of events, brought to light a small cabbage.  By this time they were so consumed with curiosity that the old man asked innocently:
   "But do you make a stone soup without meat?"
   "Ah, to be sure, a strip of charqui always improves it," replied the soldier indifferent;y, "but..."
   A girl was sent to fetch a sheet of sun-dried beef, which the former conscript cut up slowly and dropped bit by bit into the now savory-smelling chupe.  A half-hour later he lifted the kettle off the fire, the old woman handed him a gourd plate, and some cold boiled yuca as bread, and having given half to the family, he ate the stone soup with great relish--all except the dozen smooth, round stones at the bottom of the olla.

Pg. 533:  While we were swallowing chunks of this and of _empanada_, some one discovered that it was Christmas Eve.
   (See ADS-L archives.  OED has 1939 and Merriam-Webster has "circa 1922" for "empanada"--ed.)

Pg. 539:  We ate great chunks of _empanisado_, and an hour after the best meal we should have jumped to accept an invitation to a fifteen-course dinner.