Tomando once

"Tomando once" translates into English as "taking eleven". To give you some background to once I'll explain how meals in Chile are.

As an American, you can expect a great change in food when you come to Chile. It is not so much a change in food as far as what you eat, because the chilean diet is not all that different from the american diet (apart from much more coffee/tea and bread here than in the USA). The change you can expect is in when you eat. In the morning you can expect to have a light breakfast consisting of coffee or tea, bread, and any of the following: jam, cheese, slices of deli meat, butter, etc. This holds the Chilean over until lunch which is the main meal of the day. Lunch is eaten at around two in the afternoon and it is normally a salad, main course, and dessert (often times accompanied with bread). This is where once comes in. Instead of eating dinner, most Chileans just eat a meal in the evening known as "once". It has been my experience that once is very commonly identical to breakfast which means...yes, more bread.

I remember one day several years ago when I was visiting Puerto Montt, the capital of the region above us. I had eaten bread at breakfast, bread at lunch, and then bread at once. The whole day I was looking forward to accompanying the pastor to discipleship in the homes of some of the believers from the church. We went to two or three homes. Little did I know that at discipleship we'd be eating once! Wow. Here in Chile it has been my experience that pastors and missionaries always get served a double portion of food. As you can imagine, I had bread coming out of my ears that night. Chile is second only to Germany in most amount of bread eaten by the average person. I guess Robert Atkins (the Atkins diet) wouldn't survive in Chile!