Something I learned today

They eat a LOT of bread in Chile.  Apparently, this country has the 2nd highest consumption of bread in the world, at least according to my housemates.  Breakfast consists of bread and cheese and jam, lunch is the big meal with soup or meat and potatoes (and bread), and then there's teatime, which once again consists of bread and cheese and jam.  Today I asked Juan Pablo (music teacher, housemate) why their teatime/supper is called onces.  According to him, there were a lot of miners working in Chile, and when they would go to supper they would often drink, sometimes quite a bit.  The bosses didn't like this, for various reasons, and so the miners began to keep it secret, saying they were going to take onces because A-G-U-A-R-D-I-E-N-T-E, or liquor, has eleven letters in it.  It was a code to keep their drinking activities under wraps, and the Chileans still call their evening meal onces as a result, despite the strongest drink available being coffee.