Foreign Grocery Friday: The Alfajors of South America

March 23, 2012 at 11:59 AM | by JetSetCD | Comment (1)

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

Spend any time longer than a layover in Argentina or Chile or Peru (or name most any South American country) and you're bound to nibble on an Alfajor or two.

Alfajors are small, sweet sandwiches of a sort, made of two crackers with dulce de leche between, and white or milk chocolate covering it all. Trust Wikipedia to come through with the facts: "Argentina is today the world's largest consumer of Alfajors" and they've been "popular since the mid 19th century." Hey—what works for South America also works for us.

The taste: They're surprisingly dry; there's none of the creaminess like you'd find in the center of an Oreo. Instead it's the taste of waxy chocolate, followed by a plain biscuit flavor, finished with the sweet surprise of the dulce de leche. We fully recommend taking a bite and letting it sit on your tongue long enough to dampen. Then the flavor is less cookie and more chocolatey treat.

The price: Oh, so low. The most expensive one we purchased (at a specialty candy counter in a mall in Santiago) was 390 Chilean pesos, or $0.80 USD. A box of twenty of more is only a few dollars, but in pesos of course.

Where to find it: They're pretty much everywhere. What we mean is Alfajors are so ubiquitous that they were the snack handed out on our bus ride between Santiago and Mendoza. Luckily they are popular in both Chile and Argentina, so the passengers onboard were very happy with the handout.

[Photos: Cynthia Drescher for Jaunted]

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