Carbonada

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A hearty South American stew of meat, vegetables and fruit ; a dark, porous and opaque variety of diamond found mainly in Brazil and Central Africa
2. A thick, savory stew popular in parts of South America, typically with beef, squash and sweet fruit ; a black, polycrystalline form of diamond that is harder to cut than clear stones
3. A rustic meat-and-produce stew from the Southern Cone of South America ; an opaque, blackish diamond composed of many tiny crystals rather than a single one

Etymology: The name comes from Spanish "carbón," meaning charcoal or coal, with the suffix "-ada." The Spanish word originally described meat cooked over glowing embers, so it named a cooking method before it named a dish. In South America the name stayed while the food changed. Carbonada is now a thick stew in countries such as Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia, typically made with beef, pumpkin, corn, and rice, and sometimes fruit. It is often served in a hollowed-out pumpkin. Nothing in the stew's ingredients recalls the grill the name once described.