Pastel de Choclo and Pomaire

Last weekend, Maritza and I took a bus ride to a small outlying town about an hour or two south of Santiago called Pomaire. I have little knowledge of its history, but as far as I can tell, the town was created in the same kind of sense as an Indian Reservation in the US. Pomaire has made a name for itself with its pottery. The town at first glance consists entirely of a main road lined with potter shop after pottery shop with a few restaurants mixed with some other types of artisanal craft shops. The pottery is simple but distinctive, with a dark smoke stain, but no glaze or designs. The most common, and as far as I can tell, most traditional piece is the small bowl in which personal pastel de choclo dishes are baked. Pastel de choclo is a bit like a Chilean version of chicken pot pie, where the top is a soft, moist, semi-sweet corn crust. Underneath that is the leg of a chicken. It is baked and served in the same type of bowl all over Chile, and this is the type of bowl for sale in Chile. Maritza and I each got one for lunch (I thought it only had little pieces of chicken at the bottom, based on some bad advice from the waitress, and so I only ate the top part, which was a decent amount of food on its own). Then, we each bought one of the bowls after wandering around the town some more, among some other dishes that I hope will not push my suitcase over the weight limit coming home. That night, when we returned, we made a veggie version of pastel de choclo, but we made it in the bigger casserole dish (shown in the pictures, which will come soon; I don't have my camera with me right now and they're not on my computer) since we were cooking for five. Ours had different veggies as the bottom layer and wasn't quite pastel de choclo (mostly because we used frozen corn when it's supposed to be grated directly off the cob. (From what I can figure, 'choclo' technically means corn-on-the-cob, but it's the only word for corn commonly used here in Chile. Pastel means pie—not sweet—or cake.) It was good, though, and I want to try making it again, upon returning to summer, and corn.