Location: My Apartment, Santiago de Chile
Type of Bread: Hallulla (these really cheap flat rolls that everyone here eats)
In July of 1909, Frank Shailor, an employee of General Electric, submitted a patent for the D-12, which eventually became America's first commercially successful electric toaster.
http://www.toaster.org/museum.html
While, in America, the toaster has progressed from its humble, somewhat dangerous beginnings to the complicated contraptions you find in Skymall that cook hotdogs and connect to the web, the toaster technology in Santiago, Chile has not progressed far beyond the Iron Age.
Seriously. Everyone here loves these little stovetop toasters so much that every time I walk into a secondhand kitchen store and ask for an electric toaster, they at first have no idea what I'm talking about. When I explain further ('you know, it's like a box with two slots on top that you put bread in, and then you push a lever on the outside and you receive toast'), they give me that 'wow, this American is such a dumbass' look and direct me to some huge appliance store that will be glad to sell you a toaster for 5 payments of $10 (it's impossible to get a price on any appliance in units other than 'easy payments').
At any rate, Nikita and I decided to work with what we have and stay on the lookout for a quality toaster. We've been in our apartment for a while now, so we finally decided to christen it with some good old-fashioned toast-making.
As you can see, this made Nikita very excited.
With a trademark weird-Mike-expression on my face, I gave our toast a well-deserved two thumbs up.
Seriously. Everyone here loves these little stovetop toasters so much that every time I walk into a secondhand kitchen store and ask for an electric toaster, they at first have no idea what I'm talking about. When I explain further ('you know, it's like a box with two slots on top that you put bread in, and then you push a lever on the outside and you receive toast'), they give me that 'wow, this American is such a dumbass' look and direct me to some huge appliance store that will be glad to sell you a toaster for 5 payments of $10 (it's impossible to get a price on any appliance in units other than 'easy payments').
At any rate, Nikita and I decided to work with what we have and stay on the lookout for a quality toaster. We've been in our apartment for a while now, so we finally decided to christen it with some good old-fashioned toast-making.
As you can see, this made Nikita very excited.
With a trademark weird-Mike-expression on my face, I gave our toast a well-deserved two thumbs up.
Thus we claimed possession of all of South America in the name of Places I've Made Toast and officially initiated our apartment into our sacred brotherhood of toast-making. Considering that this is what it looks like from the outside,
its induction is well-deserved. We're still on the lookout for a suitable electric toaster to activate portable toasting and further legitimize our claim to an entire continent, and when we do we'll be back on with more.
its induction is well-deserved. We're still on the lookout for a suitable electric toaster to activate portable toasting and further legitimize our claim to an entire continent, and when we do we'll be back on with more.
works great for roasting Chile's too, AJI chilenos!
ReplyDeleteYou can't toast a marraqueta in those electric toasters
ReplyDelete