Serious Eats
Snapshots from Chile: Negrita Biscuits
From April 13 to 19, I traveled around Chile with two other American food journalists on a culinary media trip. Here's another snapshot from that week. —Robyn Lee
While I was delayed at Newark Airport on my way to Chile (curse American Airlines...curse), I killed some time by calling my friend Diana and asking what she'd like for me to bring back for her and her Chilean boyfriend, Ian.
"Negritas! Get Negritas! They're really good!"
"Get a what?"
"It's a type of biscuit. Ian's mom just brought a few bags back from Chile. ...And we ate a bag."
I wrote down the name in my notebook and made it my major goal of the trip to return back to America with a luggage's worth of this coveted cookie, not just for Ian and Diana but for other food-loving friends. And with a 10-pack bag only costing about $2, I could've filled a luggage without going broke.
Nah, I didn't go that crazy; I only bought ten bags.
The name of Nestlé's Negrita appears to translate to "little black girl." Is that an appropriate name for a little rectangular chocolate-covered vanilla cream-filled sandwich biscuit? No less so than the similar looking and somewhat randomly named Tim Tam or Penguin biscuits. (For more information about the use of the word negro in Spanish, check out this thread on The Study of Racialism.)
So, how were these little rectangular chocolate-covered vanilla cream-filled sandwich biscuits? I wasn't very impressed the first time I ate one, but after the third biscuit, I was sold. And mildly addicted. One cookie made for small, but satisfying sweet finish to a meal. There's nothing complicated about sandwiching a bit of sweet vanilla cream between two not-as-sweet crunchy vanilla biscuits and coating it in a thin layer of milk chocolate, but these types of biscuits just aren't ubiquitous in the USA. It's probably for the best, or else I'd eat them too often.
You can buy them online at Chilean food store, Tu Chile Aqui.