Dulce de leche (1923)

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THE TAIL OF THE HEMISPHERE:
CHILE AND ARGENTINA
by Frank G. Carpenter
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company
1923

   I've read through several of Carpenter's travel books and expected "dulce de leche" to be here.


Pg. 56 ("Among the Chilenos"):  The lower class does the work of the country and its members are known as the Inquilinos, or erroneously as _rotos_.  The word _roto_ is one of contempt, conveying the idea of a drunken, good-for-nothing loafer, or a bad, quarrelsome character.

Pg. 168 ("Buenos Aires"):  Behind their iron-barred windows, facing the streets, the senoritas sat and watched their lovers playing the "bear act," or, as it is sometimes called, "eating iron."  The girls could admire their suitors and make eyes at them, but the bars were always between.

Pg. 231:  Afterward I saw the milk for the city being put up in bottles.  In another department milk was being bottled for the steamers which leave Buenos Aires every day.  This was in pint bottles capped with tin; like beer bottles, the milk being so treated that it will keep many days.  In a third room they were making an Argentine sweet or conserve of milk and sugar which is very popular.  This is called _dulce de leche_.  It is a kind of milk marmalade which is eaten with a spoon.  It is sold in cans, the smallest of which holds only a half-dozen spoonfuls, and the larger cans about half a pint.  The Argentineans like it so much that they often send cans of it to Europe as a special treat for their friends.  The ingredients are only pure milk and sugar, which are put into great copper kettles and cooked by steam for twelve hours.

Pg. 237:  One of the favourite dishes is _carne con cuero_, which means "meat cooked in the skin."  The meat is wrapped up tightly in the hide of the animal from which it comes.