South America Food & Drink

South America food is not one cuisine. It is a set of national kitchens built on a few shared staples: potatoes, corn and quinoa from the Andes, cassava from the lowlands, beef and lamb from the south, and fish from two oceans and the Amazon.

So the useful question is not what South Americans eat. It is where you are: ceviche on Peru’s coast, a salteña mid-morning in Bolivia, a long asado in Uruguay.

The Staple Foods of South America

Corn, potatoes and cassava

FAO dates the potato’s domestication to about 8,000 years ago around Lake Titicaca, which Peru shares with Bolivia. Peru alone grows more than 3,500 varieties, according to its state news agency, and the International Potato Center counts more than 4,000 native varieties across the Andes of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Our Bolivia and Peru tours travel through the potato’s home country.

Corn (maíz) was domesticated in Mexico and reached South America early: the oldest cobs found on Peru’s north coast are about 6,700 years old, according to a study in the journal PNAS. Corn is the arepa of Colombia and Venezuela, the humitas of Argentina and Chile, and the chicha of the Andes.

East of the Andes the tuber is cassava, called manioc, mandioca or yuca depending on the country, eaten across the Amazon alongside plantain. Brazil toasts it into farofa, Paraguay bakes chipa from its starch, and Guyana boils its juice into cassareep, the dark syrup in pepperpot.

Quinoa

FAO dates quinoa’s cultivation back more than 7,000 years. Until recently Bolivian cities looked down on it as a food only of the Aymara. Then the rest of the world found it, and Bolivia’s harvest more than tripled between 2006 and 2013. In Cochabamba it even goes into festive chicha, a corn beer.

Beef, lamb and alpaca

In the south, meat leads. Uruguay keeps more than 11 million cattle for about 3.4 million people, and Argentina is world famous for its asado. Patagonia runs on lamb roasted whole beside the fire: cordero al asador in Argentina, cordero al palo in Chile. In the high Andes, llama and alpaca reach the plate too. Chile’s north roasts both, and in 2010 Peru’s Huancavelica regional government promoted alpaca as a nutritious meat, low in fat.

Fish and seafood

Corvina goes into ceviche in Chile’s north and into Ecuador’s coconut encocado. In the far south, centolla king crab is the pride of Ushuaia and Punta Arenas, and the Patagonian toothfish is the fish sold in the United States as Chilean sea bass. Inland, the Amazon’s pirarucu, called paiche in Peru, is the largest scaled freshwater fish in the world, and Lake Titicaca’s trout came from North America in the 1930s.

Tropical fruits

The hot lowlands add fruit, and much of it becomes juice. The Amazon eats açaí unsweetened with fish and manioc flour; the sweet bowl is the export version. Guaraná, also native to the Amazon, becomes a fizzy soda in Brazil, and camu camu carries some 65 times the vitamin C of a lemon. In Colombia ask for lulo, maracuyá (passion fruit) or guanábana (soursop). And plants are medicine too: in Paraguay, pohã ñana, medicinal herbs, go into the tereré.

What Shaped the Table

Indigenous cooks gave the continent its staples, and everyone who came later added something. Bahia’s acarajé descends from West African, especially Yoruba, cooking. Chinese immigrants reached Peru from 1849 with the wok, so lomo saltado is beef stir-fried in the wok and served with fries. Italians made pizza and pasta everyday food in Argentina and Uruguay, Welsh settlers left Patagonia its tea houses, and Indian and Javanese workers brought curry, roti and bami noodles to Guyana and Suriname.

South American Food by Country

Each row links to our full food and drink guide for that place.

The Venezuela guide carries a serious travel advisory. Read it before you plan.

Dishes That Cross Borders

Some foods belong to several countries, and the neighbors do not always agree on whose they are. We describe. We do not referee.

Arepas. Venezuela and Colombia share this corn cake, which Indigenous women made across what is now Panama, Colombia and Venezuela. Colombia shapes it differently in every region; Venezuela fills it, most famously as the reina pepiada, chicken with avocado.

Empanadas. Most countries here have their own, and no two match. Chile’s empanada de pino puts raisins in on purpose, Bolivia’s salteña holds a filling that is half stew, Venezuela’s are corn dough, fried, and Paraguay’s pastel mandi’o uses cassava and cornmeal dough.

Asado and churrasco. Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay gather around the grill, and the South of Brazil has churrasco, carved at your table in a rodízio. An asado is a social occasion as much as a meal. Expect it to take the afternoon.

Mate, tereré and chimarrão. One leaf, three habits. Argentines and Uruguayans share hot mate from one gourd through a metal straw, the bombilla. Paraguay drinks yerba mate ice-cold as tereré, inscribed by UNESCO in 2020. In southern Brazil it is chimarrão.

Ceviche. In 2023 UNESCO inscribed the making and eating of Peruvian ceviche, raw fish marinated in citrus with chili and salt, as intangible cultural heritage. Ecuador’s is often shrimp, reddish with tomato and soupy. Our Ecuador and Peru tours let you compare for yourself.

Pisco. Chile and Peru both make a grape brandy called pisco, and both protect the name by law: Chile since 1931, Peru with its first denomination of origin in 1990. Each country considers pisco its own. We leave that argument to them and suggest a pisco sour on each side of the border.

Dulce de leche. Milk and sugar cooked slowly until thick, called manjar in Chile, fills alfajores in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile.

What South Americans Drink

Wine. Each wine country has its grape: Malbec in Argentina, Tannat in Uruguay (26.5% of its vineyard area), and in Chile Carmenère, planted there as Merlot and identified only in 1994.

Spirits. Brazil’s cachaça, the base of the caipirinha, is a name reserved by law for sugarcane spirit made in Brazil. Bolivia’s singani is a grape brandy protected since 1992, Colombia’s aguardiente is flavored with anise, and Venezuelan rum must be aged at least two years.

Coffee. Brazil grows nearly 40 percent of the world’s coffee, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Colombia exports about 93% of its coffee, BBC Mundo reported in 2020, so the everyday tinto is not the cup behind the reputation.

Without alcohol. Chicha means different drinks in different countries. Peru’s chicha morada is purple corn cooked with fruit and spices, served cold, with no alcohol; Cochabamba’s chicha is a mildly alcoholic corn beer; Venezuela’s is a sweet drink of rice and milk. Add Peru’s golden Inca Kola and Bolivia’s hot corn api.

In the highlands of Peru and Bolivia you will be offered mate de coca, coca-leaf tea. The CDC says no strong evidence shows it works against altitude sickness, it may cause a positive drug test, and the US lists coca leaves as a Schedule II controlled substance. Drink it there and leave it there.

How and When South Americans Eat

Lunch is often the main meal. In Colombia, order the almuerzo corriente: soup, a main plate and fresh juice. In Bolivia the set almuerzo is soup and a segundo, a main course. Dinner in Buenos Aires often starts around 9 p.m. or later, Chileans take once, their teatime, between 5 and 7 p.m..

Chilean law requires table-service restaurants to suggest a tip of at least 10 percent, Brazil usually adds a 10% service charge, and in Bolivia’s ordinary restaurants a tip is not generally expected. Our South America money guide covers the rest.

Food and Water Safety in South America

The CDC’s advice holds across the continent: do not drink tap water where it might be contaminated, choose factory-sealed drinks and skip ice where clean water is a concern. It also advises against raw seafood “cooked” in citrus, ceviche included. That is the official line; the decision is yours. On the Patagonian and Chilean coasts, red tide can make shellfish toxic and cooking does not destroy the toxin, so buy shellfish only where its sale is authorized. Our staying healthy in South America guide covers vaccines, altitude and the rest.

Build Food Into Your South America Trip

Certainly see the famous sights. Then eat each dish where it was born, and leave room in the day for the long lunch.

For a trip built around the table, start with our Food & Wine Tour of Argentina & Chile, The South America Wine Tour or Wineries of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

See all our South America food and wine tours. Our Destination Consultants can custom design a South America trip around the tables you want to sit at. For everything else, start with our South America travel guide.