Last year, I wrote a long entry
about Paraguayan cuisine that specifically focused around what the famous
Paraguayan author Agusto Roa Basto described as “fragrant, golden rings” in his
well-known book entitled “Hijo del Hombre” (Son of Man). What I was referring
to is more than just a simple food that people here enjoy with a passion unparalleled
by any equivalent food in
America.
It is called
chipa, and to say that
it is just a food would be an insult to the Paraguayan way of life. Simply put,
chipa is more or less a tough corn
and manioc flour cake that is consumed in every corner of the country, and I am
certain would illegal in the States to make without serious oversight of the
necessary ingredients. Despite individual families’ variations it is
essentially made using the same ingredients with little variation. Every
Paraguayan from infancy throughout their entire lives is exposed to copious
amounts of the biscuit like treat. However, its importance stretches into the
religious fabric of the country because during Easter and the week leading up
to Easter, families bake bountiful amounts of
chipa in their back yard ovens known as
tatakuas. The
chipas are
to be eaten as the primary source of
food starting on good Friday and ending on Easter Sunday. In other country’s
the tradition is to fast or just to avoid meat, but in Paraguay all you eat is
chipa, which let me tell you after two
days is sort of sitting out on the table, the
chipa transforms into a sort of crumbling rock that even the dogs
struggle to chump through. This time last year, I was starving on Easter Sunday
because of said tradition, and was immensely relieved once Easter was over that
our diets could resume normally through the reintroduction of proteins.
This
year my perspective was different in that I now live alone. That allows me the privilege
to make
chipa, receive
chipa, but not depend on it as my only
form of sustenance during the week. Having made
chipa already one time before with my host family during the three
month training period I was somewhat familiar with what the primary components
to construct the perfect
chipa were,
but didn't truly appreciate the importance of the process until recently. For
the record, I find
chipa to be a food
I only choose to eat when no other options exist, or when it is given to me by
someone who asks if I’m hungry. With time, I have grown to appreciate the taste
and the subtle nuances that exist between different kinds, but to date, I
cannot say I will be craving it once I am not longer in position to purchase it
back in
America.
I think my personal taste preferences initially limited my ability to
appreciate
chipa for what it is to
Paraguayans. I cannot honestly say I have never met a Paraguayan who doesn't like
chipa or doesn't know how to
make it. You would have to blind not to know what it is especially because it can
be purchased on any long distance bus going anywhere in the country.
Bus
companies have unspoken agreements with
chipa
individual
chipa vendors for the
right to sell their
chipa on their buses Women, normally heavier set women for reasons that become obvious upon
a brief glace at the ingredients that go into
chipa, board the buses with an enormous basket containing hundreds
of
chipas that sell for roughly $0.50
each. You can always tell when the
chipa lady,
most often it is a woman, by how everyone on the bus starts digging around
their wallets and purses, and how everyone seems to come to life as the lady
bumps back and forward in between the aisle with basket that appears almost as
big as the woman carrying it on her shoulder. Remarkably the women usually sell
most of her stock on one bus, particularly if it is early in the morning. Her
enormous basket with the intricately folded white cloth that contains and
maintains the
chipas temperature gradually
shrinks from mountain to a small mound in a matter of minutes. The ladies
selling the
chipas somehow are able to
maintain balance in spite the ridiculous speeds the lunatic bus drivers seem to
maintain no matter how much traffic there is on the road. They are also
simultaneously able to break change and put each
chipa in a small plastic bag with the logo of the
chipa company on the front. Aside from
the comically large basket these women hoist on their shoulders, the uniform of
the
chipa vendor is usually a shirt
polo shirt with a certain color fringe and the logo of the company over the
heart. Usually the woman wears shorts skirts and hose the former of which
matches the tinge of the polo. I don’t know exactly how many runs the average
vendor does in a day, but I do know that they are apart of an elite group of
contributors to the economy that work rain or shine and on weekends and holidays.
They will board a bus whether it has 10 people sitting rows away from each
other, or whether it has 100 passengers crammed in every seat and stuffed in
every square foot of the aisle. Nevertheless, if you by some horrible stroke of
bad luck are on a bus where a
chipa
lady doesn't get on, lets just say because one couldn't hop aboard the bus with
a 30 pound basket on her shoulder with a bus driver that refuses to go slower
that 10 mph when passing, there is no need to fret because at every bus
terminal in the country one will be accosted by 5-15 people each selling one of
six things one of which will always be
chipa.
In fact, on the four-and-a-half hour bus ride from Asuncion, the capital of
Paraguay, to Juan E. O’Leary, where I live, the average patron will have no
less than four opportunities to buy
chipa
from someone and often times more than that.
The
culture of bus
chipa, in many ways,
is its own unique subculture from the traditional heritage that developed over
hundreds of years. Sure the ingredients are the same, but they are mass
produced for the populace and only half the times are backed in the traditional
tatakua. For me that commercialization
is sort of the equivalent of eating grandmas home made biscuits versus Pillsbury
ready to bake. Sure the commercialized version that claims to taste like
grandmas are good, but it’s just not the same. That feeling is very analogous
to the
chipa industry here. Despite commercialization
efforts to push grandma so-and-so’s
chipa
or patron saint of whatever’s
chipa
nothing tastes quite the same as the stuff made at home.
Making
chipa is a simple enough process, but
like all true homemade delicacies there is a procedure that has been mastered
only after the knowledge has been passed down for generations and with years of
practice under one’s belt. So to say that my abilities are novice-like is
spectacular understatement. Sure I can get the method down easily enough, but
the making of the
chipa doesn't have
roots in my genetic heritage, so I have to willingly accepted that I will
always, in spite of my best efforts, be a goofy outsider when it comes to
making the Paraguayan snack of the Gods. This past Wednesday I was invited over
by a neighbor who let me help her make her
chipa
for the week. The following is her process that is pretty much universally
accepted throughout all corners of
Paraguay. Describing
chipa and its production method in a way
that truly hits home for most Americans I will once again emphasize the analogy
of mom or grandma’s homemade rolls or biscuits. Sure the frozen ones are good,
but they aren't the same. A reason for that might be because somehow grandmas
knows better than to settle for whatever the grocery store has to offer as a substitute
to an important component. But in
America today, a lot of the ingredients
are things that we no longer have ready access to because we didn't grow up on
a farm or close to an area where we could get fresh milk or eggs. Paraguayans,
for the most part, still have access to those fresh ingredients that seem to
have disappeared from the American household, and therefore the rustic identity
of homemade
chipa is still very much
a part of the cultural identity.
To make about 100
chipas one must have the following ingredients: 2 dozen eggs (preferably
laid from your own chickens), 1.5 kilos of pig fat aka lard (Crisco or another
fat substitute has yet to make headwind in the Paraguayan marketplace), 2-3
kilos of finely ground corn flower (again preferably your own corn that you
ground yourself), 4 kilos of manioc flower (naturally grown and ground
yourself), 100-200 gram packet of anis seed (smells and tastes like black liquorish),
1.5-2.5 kilos of Paraguayan cheese (really difficult to describe this, but
imagine taking fresh milk from your cow and being able to make a solid block of
slightly smelly, soft, white cheese that is ready to use in a variety of foods
the next day), and lastly a pitcher full of salty milk that one adds to taste.
Once all your ingredients are gathered the process of mixing takes on its own
unique process. First, you mix the lard, the eggs, and a portion of the corn
flower together until you create a yellowish paste that masks the smell of the
eggs. You add corn flower accordingly until you achieve the desired result. Next
you start kneading in the rest of the corn flour and the entire 4 kilos manioc flour
along with the anis seed and salt milk until you get lumpy looking dough. Then
add the cheese, depending on how cheesy you want it, and fold that into the
mixture. The cheese is typically soft, and blends in well if it is fresh.
However, that is not a requirement and the older the cheese the worse it tastes
when one is unexpectedly given a piece. After the entire tub is in a dough form
each chunk is kneaded again until smooth, and it typically shaped in a circle,
a think log, or a bun, but it can really be molded into whatever you want
because the texture is a lot like Play dough.
Once
the arduous task of forming all the
chipas
is completed one must cut down 2-3 banana tree leaves that serve as the base
for the
chipa as it is put in the
tatakua. A
tatakua is a small brick oven that is made from cheap adobe bricks
formed around iron rebar, and covered with adobe paste. One heats the
tatakua exclusively by burning wood.
Needless to say that
Paraguay
utilizes the
tatakua for many other
cooking purposes, and is therefore
South America’s
number one per capita consumer of firewood as a result. Once oven is hot enough
you throw in the
chipas much like you
would for a pizza in a brick oven, wait 15-20 minutes and before you know it
you are chewing on a delicious piece of golden brown
chipa. Unfortunately, right out of the oven and hot is really the
only time that it is chewable without having the fear of breaking ones teeth.
You can reheat it the next day, but it’s not the same, and after 2 days of
sitting out it is close to inedible. In reality,
chipa can be eaten at all times of day regardless of the weather
and temperature. Most commonly it is eaten for breakfast with a steaming cup of
cocido, which is burnt yerba mate and
burnt sugar brought to a boil with water or milk then drank scalding hot with
copious amounts of sugar that makes feel like you are contracting diabetes and
cancer at the same time. Families all over
Paraguay make
chipa the week leading up to Easter, and eat it throughout. It is
an important food, but a more important component of a happy family that lives
and shares together. It kind of reminds me of making Christmas cookies with my
Mom and Grandma during the holiday season.
As for my personal opinion concerning
chipa,
all I’ll say is that it is an acquired taste. I’ll eat it, especially when its
fresh, but I am not sure that I would be able to eat it frequently without
wanting to kill myself as it sits in my stomach like a brick. Since arriving I
have seen
chipa made in many places,
particularly close to where I live, and just like anything everyone has their
specific methods and details that go into making their own family’s
chipa. I guess what it was about the
whole culture of the flaky, rock hard, Paraguayan indulgence that inspired me to
write about it again has to do with the fact that it is Easter again, and I am
not home with my family, again. Although everything about the taste and the
process of making it is totally unique, the values transcend culture, and make
me a bit homesick. With that I’d like to say Happy Easter to my family at home
particularly to my Mom and Grandma who I am sure made something special, that I
cannot wait to have again soon, for everyone at home.
 |
| The final product |
Last year, I wrote a long entry
about Paraguayan cuisine that specifically focused around what the famous
Paraguayan author Agusto Roa Basto described as “fragrant, golden rings” in his
well-known book entitled “Hijo del Hombre” (Son of Man). What I was referring
to is more than just a simple food that people here enjoy with a passion unparalleled
by any equivalent food in 
This
year my perspective was different in that I now live alone. That allows me the privilege
to make chipa, receive chipa, but not depend on it as my only
form of sustenance during the week. Having made chipa already one time before with my host family during the three
month training period I was somewhat familiar with what the primary components
to construct the perfect chipa were,
but didn't truly appreciate the importance of the process until recently. For
the record, I find chipa to be a food
I only choose to eat when no other options exist, or when it is given to me by
someone who asks if I’m hungry. With time, I have grown to appreciate the taste
and the subtle nuances that exist between different kinds, but to date, I
cannot say I will be craving it once I am not longer in position to purchase it
back in 
Bus
companies have unspoken agreements with chipa
individual chipa vendors for the
right to sell their chipa on their buses Women, normally heavier set women for reasons that become obvious upon
a brief glace at the ingredients that go into chipa, board the buses with an enormous basket containing hundreds
of chipas that sell for roughly $0.50
each. You can always tell when the chipa lady,
most often it is a woman, by how everyone on the bus starts digging around
their wallets and purses, and how everyone seems to come to life as the lady
bumps back and forward in between the aisle with basket that appears almost as
big as the woman carrying it on her shoulder. Remarkably the women usually sell
most of her stock on one bus, particularly if it is early in the morning. Her
enormous basket with the intricately folded white cloth that contains and
maintains the chipas temperature gradually
shrinks from mountain to a small mound in a matter of minutes. The ladies
selling the chipas somehow are able to
maintain balance in spite the ridiculous speeds the lunatic bus drivers seem to
maintain no matter how much traffic there is on the road. They are also
simultaneously able to break change and put each chipa in a small plastic bag with the logo of the chipa company on the front. Aside from
the comically large basket these women hoist on their shoulders, the uniform of
the chipa vendor is usually a shirt
polo shirt with a certain color fringe and the logo of the company over the
heart. Usually the woman wears shorts skirts and hose the former of which
matches the tinge of the polo. I don’t know exactly how many runs the average
vendor does in a day, but I do know that they are apart of an elite group of
contributors to the economy that work rain or shine and on weekends and holidays.
They will board a bus whether it has 10 people sitting rows away from each
other, or whether it has 100 passengers crammed in every seat and stuffed in
every square foot of the aisle. Nevertheless, if you by some horrible stroke of
bad luck are on a bus where a chipa
lady doesn't get on, lets just say because one couldn't hop aboard the bus with
a 30 pound basket on her shoulder with a bus driver that refuses to go slower
that 10 mph when passing, there is no need to fret because at every bus
terminal in the country one will be accosted by 5-15 people each selling one of
six things one of which will always be chipa.
In fact, on the four-and-a-half hour bus ride from Asuncion, the capital of
Paraguay, to Juan E. O’Leary, where I live, the average patron will have no
less than four opportunities to buy chipa
from someone and often times more than that. 
The
culture of bus chipa, in many ways,
is its own unique subculture from the traditional heritage that developed over
hundreds of years. Sure the ingredients are the same, but they are mass
produced for the populace and only half the times are backed in the traditional
tatakua. For me that commercialization
is sort of the equivalent of eating grandmas home made biscuits versus Pillsbury
ready to bake. Sure the commercialized version that claims to taste like
grandmas are good, but it’s just not the same. That feeling is very analogous
to the chipa industry here. Despite commercialization
efforts to push grandma so-and-so’s chipa
or patron saint of whatever’s chipa
nothing tastes quite the same as the stuff made at home. 
Making
chipa is a simple enough process, but
like all true homemade delicacies there is a procedure that has been mastered
only after the knowledge has been passed down for generations and with years of
practice under one’s belt. So to say that my abilities are novice-like is
spectacular understatement. Sure I can get the method down easily enough, but
the making of the chipa doesn't have
roots in my genetic heritage, so I have to willingly accepted that I will
always, in spite of my best efforts, be a goofy outsider when it comes to
making the Paraguayan snack of the Gods. This past Wednesday I was invited over
by a neighbor who let me help her make her chipa
for the week. The following is her process that is pretty much universally
accepted throughout all corners of 
To make about 100 chipas one must have the following ingredients: 2 dozen eggs (preferably
laid from your own chickens), 1.5 kilos of pig fat aka lard (Crisco or another
fat substitute has yet to make headwind in the Paraguayan marketplace), 2-3
kilos of finely ground corn flower (again preferably your own corn that you
ground yourself), 4 kilos of manioc flower (naturally grown and ground
yourself), 100-200 gram packet of anis seed (smells and tastes like black liquorish),
1.5-2.5 kilos of Paraguayan cheese (really difficult to describe this, but
imagine taking fresh milk from your cow and being able to make a solid block of
slightly smelly, soft, white cheese that is ready to use in a variety of foods
the next day), and lastly a pitcher full of salty milk that one adds to taste.
Once all your ingredients are gathered the process of mixing takes on its own
unique process. First, you mix the lard, the eggs, and a portion of the corn
flower together until you create a yellowish paste that masks the smell of the
eggs. You add corn flower accordingly until you achieve the desired result. Next
you start kneading in the rest of the corn flour and the entire 4 kilos manioc flour
along with the anis seed and salt milk until you get lumpy looking dough. Then
add the cheese, depending on how cheesy you want it, and fold that into the
mixture. The cheese is typically soft, and blends in well if it is fresh.
However, that is not a requirement and the older the cheese the worse it tastes
when one is unexpectedly given a piece. After the entire tub is in a dough form
each chunk is kneaded again until smooth, and it typically shaped in a circle,
a think log, or a bun, but it can really be molded into whatever you want
because the texture is a lot like Play dough.
Once
the arduous task of forming all the chipas
is completed one must cut down 2-3 banana tree leaves that serve as the base
for the chipa as it is put in the tatakua. A tatakua is a small brick oven that is made from cheap adobe bricks
formed around iron rebar, and covered with adobe paste. One heats the tatakua exclusively by burning wood.
Needless to say that 
As for my personal opinion concerning chipa,
all I’ll say is that it is an acquired taste. I’ll eat it, especially when its
fresh, but I am not sure that I would be able to eat it frequently without
wanting to kill myself as it sits in my stomach like a brick. Since arriving I
have seen chipa made in many places,
particularly close to where I live, and just like anything everyone has their
specific methods and details that go into making their own family’s chipa. I guess what it was about the
whole culture of the flaky, rock hard, Paraguayan indulgence that inspired me to
write about it again has to do with the fact that it is Easter again, and I am
not home with my family, again. Although everything about the taste and the
process of making it is totally unique, the values transcend culture, and make
me a bit homesick. With that I’d like to say Happy Easter to my family at home
particularly to my Mom and Grandma who I am sure made something special, that I
cannot wait to have again soon, for everyone at home.
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