SANTIAGO – Starting next year, Chilean school children will get the possibility to eat lunch just as the indigenous people in Chile eat them. Three of the biggest cultures will get represented in the school kitchen: those of the Aymara, the Rapa Nui and the Mapuche. The program will carry the name of “Cooking with Roots”.
The Chilean Ministry of Social Development and Family has announced that starting next school year, children in five regions in the country will have the possibility to eat dishes that originate from the kitchen of the indigenous peoples in Chile. Plates from the Aymara, Rapa Nui and Mapuche peoples will be prepared in school kitchens and offered to the kids. Later, the idea is that kids all over Chile have the option to get to eat from Chile’s indigenous kitchen.
According to Social Development Minister Sebastián Sichel, the incorporation of the indigenous kitchen in the Chilean schools serves to help the younger generations to better understand other cultures around them. Earlier the same had been done in regions that have high migration rates, by offering plates originally from countries like Haiti and Peru.
From kana kana to milloquin
Some examples of the dishes served are the fish kana kana, or a dessert based on banana, both from Easter Island, Aymara calpurka, which is a soup from the Aymara people in the North, or snacks made from milloquin, which comes from the Mapuche.
The project is to start in the first half of 2020 for the students of Arica and Parinacota, Tarapacá and Antofagasta, who will enjoy dishes from the Aymara people. In the Araucanía region, Mapuche dishes will get served and on Easter Island of course the dishes from the Rapa Nui people.
Editor-In-Chief Boris van der Spek is the founder of Chile Today.