Eleven o clock
The eleven, also colloquially the eleven, once, the eleven or onces, are a traditional Chilean meal served at mid-afternoon-night —when tea, coffee or milk is drunk along with cakes, various desserts and various varieties of bread, which is widely used in Chile, with its accompaniments—, in the manner of English tea time (afternoon tea or high tea), the French goûter or the snack Spanish. Although this food was already popular in Chile in the 19th century, it gained momentum there during the 1960s.
Description
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It usually varies in content, depending on the region of Chile, and the time it is served, but normally it is customary to "take once" between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. On the other hand, If the drink - coffee, tea or milk - is accompanied with something sweet, this changes according to the climate, culture and influences of the place where it is served.
In the central zone of Chile, bread is eaten —usually marraqueta or hallulla—, which tends to be accompanied with eggs, ham, manjar, butter, jam, avocado, pâté, cheese or tomato, among other foods. In addition, cookies, ice cream and fried foods of Spanish origin are consumed —such as calzones rotos, picarones, roscas or sopaipillas—, ember tortillas or cakes.
In the southern zone of Chile, where there is a great Germanic influence —product of German immigration in Chile—, people usually eat crepes, berlines, apple strudel, Kalter Hund, kuchen, pancakes or their variant kaiserschmarrn; Items similar to the German Abendbrot, such as sausages and pâtés, are also common. In cities where there are large numbers of Croatian descendants, such as Punta Arenas, it is traditional to find desserts such as hrstule, krafnes —a type of Croatian berlin— or krostules, cheesecakes or so-called “Dalmatian sweets”.
The range of eleven foods has been expanded. More and more generic foods or directly taken from breakfast are included, as is the case of cereals or fruit juice. For similar reasons, it is usual to find elaborate sandwiches in the eleven restaurants, such as the barros jarpa or the barros luco, or the presence of seafood in the bread, with special mention of salmon.
Due to the rhythm of modern life that has been eliminating dinner, in many families eleven have come to replace dinner, opting more and more for abundant eleven —especially in Greater Santiago—, a situation that is often colloquially called "eleventh" or "eleven food".
Etymology
The origin of the term is disputed; Most likely, it is the literal translation of a mid-morning meal, known in English as elevenses ("onces"), an interpretation collected by the Royal Spanish Academy. In its Notes for the history of Chilean cuisine (1943), Eugenio Pereira Salas indicates that it could come from the eleventh, «an English word that Lord Cochrane would have introduced into the national seamanship to designate the midday snack", although he also considers that from the period "between lunch and dinner derives the traditional once".
Another unproven theory, possibly based on a popular etymology, points out that clergymen (and in other versions, women or workers) used the expression "to take once" to hide that they were going to have a drink of brandy — eleven-letter word—mid-afternoon.
In Critical and social history of the city of Santiago from its foundation to the present day (1541-1868) (1869), Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna reports that one of the customs of the Santiago knights of the Colonia «was to take between breakfast and lunch, by way of comfort, a little mistela or brandy and by the eleven letters of the latter they called this distribution or parvidad eleven (original spelling)".
Regarding the definition and use of the term, the Dictionary of Chileanisms (1875) by Zorobabel Rodríguez explains it as:
[...] the reaction that is taken half a day is a chaste word; although it is not easy to find an example of it in the writings of the classics. As such strain derives its name from the time it is taken, it lacks plural i is a nonsense to say: we will take the eleven [...] It is therefore, though curious, completely cravings the epilogia that attributes to the questioned vocable Mr. Vicuña Mackenna in [a] passage from his History of Santiago (Original spelling).
Similarly, the fourth volume of the Dictionary of Chilean words and other voices and vicious locutions (1916) by Manuel Antonio Román specifies the following:
Eleven (Las) Only the Dicc admits it on the fr. Make or take one at eleven: “take a short snack between 11 and 12 in the morning, or between lunch and food.” As the eleven are already used, the voice has come to emancipate themselves from these verbs and to camp for itself or accompanied by many others: “What will they be, or what will my eleven consist of today? You give me my eleven and don't wait until you ask them again. What time do you want or need eleven? 11 who have prepared me!” It is therefore appropriate to leave her alone, since she can walk without walkers. —What can’t be forgiven is the pl. that almost always put on him the newspapers and the bad books: “I took a very succulent “onces”. What 'onces' those who offered him to the deputy! [...].
The Chilean elite, especially those from Santiago, speak "of tea" and not of "once" since the latter term links them to the middle and popular classes.