Marga's Foodblog

I haven't updated this blog for the last month and half or so 'cause I've been visiting my home country of Argentina. Though Argentinian food offers little variety it can be quite good and satisfying. Indeed both Mike and I were surprised that by the end of our trip we weren't craving for any particular food from back home (California) and would have been quite happy to eat another empanada, milanesa or steak.

Rather than writing a whole posting about eating in Argentina, which feels too daunting now, I thought I'd write whatever comes to mind in individual postings. Hope you enjoy it.

I've concluded that Argentine pizza is an acquired taste. Not one difficult to acquire, mind you, but I have to admit that we didn't enjoy that first bite of a pizza in Argentina nearly as much as we did subsequent ones. By the end of the trip, I, at least, greatly preferred it to American pizza (with the exception of Zachary's, of course).

Argentine pizza tends to have a bready thin-to-medium crust which tastes quite good on its own. It's covered by a extremely thin layer of tomato sauce, so thin that sometimes I wondered if it had any sauce at all, and then by a ton of mozarella cheese and whatever other topping you've chosen (the choices are usually much fewer than in the US, ham being the most common one). Each slice then is decorated by a green olive and, sometimes, by a slice of preserved red pepper. Oregano is sprinkled on the pizza before baking. Most often pizza is baked in a pan, though some places serve pizza a la piedra, or pizza baked on a stone. I can't say that I've noticed a significant difference between the two.

Argentine mozarella cheese, like all diary products, tastes different from American mozarella and I think that might be the reason why Argentine pizza is tastier. In general, diary products in Argentina are just good (all that Pampa grass is good for something). Though of course, having a pizza that just oozes cheese everywhere doesn't hurt - your average Argentine pizza probably has at least 3 times as much cheese as your average American pizza.

What was perhaps most amazing to me is that Argentine pizzas were served just about everywhere, and they were just as good whether served at a pizzeria, a regular restaurant, a cafe or made at home from a pre-pizza (a la Boboli). Indeed, even the frozen pizzas were much tastiers than the ones here. Pizza is also quite cheap, we generally paid between U$2-3 for a "large"pizza, which was probably 8" in diameter but was large enough for the 4 of us (of course, 2 of us are under the age of 4).

The *only* place where we had a pizza we didn't like was a restaurant in Mar del Plata (forgot the name) where they show a movie with your lunch. I guess that's enough to get the tourists in, and they don't have to bother to make even passable pizza. Needless to say we only went once.

Even the pizza at the tenedores libres, or buffets, was quite good.

Tonight we're babysitting and our usual ritual on babysitting nights is to order pizza - and truth be told, I wish I could have an Argentinian pizza rather than an American one.

Other than asado, empanadas are probaby Argentina's most traditional food. They are also one of its most popular. They are widely available at restaurants, cafes, bakeries, pizzerias and, of course, empanada shops. I've always held that empanadas are the perfect food. They are portable, you can eat them anywhere (often with little mess), some are good hot or cold, eat one and it's a snack, eat a few and you have a whole meal. Mike seems to have adopted this philosophy as he pretty much had an empanada or two (or three or four) every day we were in Argentina. Of course, he swore that mine are better than anything he tried, but he's a smart man.

As far as I can tell there are three basic types of empanadas: fritas, al horno and souffle. Baked empanadas are most common and most popular, they are lower in fat, easier to make (deep friers are still a novelty in Argentina) and they can be eaten at room temperature or reheated without loss in quality. Fried empanadas are considered more traditional, and when we've had them we've remarked at how good they are. Still, I don't think they are probably worth the extra calories. Souffle empanadas are a variant of fried empanadas, according to my quick research on the web they are made by taking the empanadas out of a cold refrigerator and quickly introducing them into very hot oil. The results are fluffier empanada with a drier dough. We only had them the last two days we were in Argentina, at an empanada place in La Plata called El Ladrillo (where my parents used to buy them decades ago) and they were amazingly good. Yep, even better than mine.

As for fillings, the standard ones are beef, chicken, ham and cheese and humita (corn). Also popular are Roquefort cheese (they must mix it with another cheese, I'd like to find out which), Napolitanas (with tomato, ham and cheese), onion and spinach. In some places we tried empanadas árabes, which had a different shape and a spicier beef filling - they were yummy. And at El Ladrillo I ordered an empanada called "Americana" which ended up being my favorite, its filling consisted of cheese, pancetta and plums.

This trip we spent sometime in the north west of the country so we had the opportunity of trying empanadas from Salta and Tucumán. These empanadas are famed in the rest of Argentina for being particularly different and delicious, but we didn't think so. The empanada salteñas might be a little bit smaller than their southern cousins and have potato as well as beef in their filling. They are spiced quite similarly, however, and the potato adds little to the overall effect. The empanadas tucumanas use chopped rather than ground beef, and this may lead to a tastier, juicier empanada if cooked by the right people. We had them at the hole-in-the-wall empanada place in front of the central plaza and found them disgusting. The meat was tough, extremely fatty and pretty much impossible to eat.

Despite eating empanadas pretty much every day while in Argentina, Mike still wants more - so I'll be making some for a potluck on Sunday and a movie night on Tuesday. I have a bunch of pulled pork I made last night in the fridge - maybe I should try pulled pork empanadas, what do you think?

All diary

Argentinian diary products are all excellent. They taste quite different from American products, most likely because the cows have a different feed. Some day - I can only hope - they'll start importing these products to the US and they'll take it by storm.

I'm not a milk drinker, so I can't comment on the milk - but butter and cream just taste better.

Mayo

Yep, even mayo tastes better. It might be the eggs (not an egg eater, didn't try them) but most likely it's the oil they use: sunflower seed oil. I'm going to have to check at stores that carry Argentine products if they sell Argentine mayo as well.

French Fries

I don't exactly know why, but Argentine french fries are all yummy. They are usually on the thin side - a little bit fatter than your average McDonald fry - and non-coated. But I think the secret is, once again, the oil on which they are fried. On some cases it may be sunflower seed oil or grapeseed oil, but in others it's just a comercial mixture.

Strawberries

They were in season when we first got there, and OH MY GOD - the little, totally ripe strawberries where unbelievable. It reminded me of why, as a kid, strawberries and cream was my favorite dessert to order at restaurants.

Beef

Need I say more?

Rotisserie Chicken

As a kid I LOVED pollo al spiedo or rotisserie chicken. There was a deli kitty corner to our house and its amazing arom teased me every time I'd go by. But it was a special treat which we could only have once in a while. No wonder, even now a rotisserie chicken costs U$6, pretty much the same as in the US and substantially more than beef. Rotisserie chickens are no longer widely available in Argentina, they've been supplanted by grilled chicken, but we had it a couple of times in Salta. And OH MY GOD, it was soooooooooooo good. Surely the marinades must be a reason, if I could only find those recipes.

Medialunas

Argentina's croissants can be great - but they not always are. At the hands of the right bakery they can be heavenly, though.

Masas Finas

These bite-size pastries often featuring dulce de leche are also a wonderful treat. They are expensive - often costing U$7-11 a kilo (depending of the bakery).

Milhoja

This typical Argentine treat consists of multiple layers of very thin phillo-like dough covered with dulce de leche. Again, it's a matter of which bakery makes it, but at the hands of the right bakery it can be delicious. I had to bring a kilo of milhoja to my sister back from Argentina.

Imperial

This is another typical Argentine tea-time treat. It's a rectangular cake of hard merengue and cream. Yummy.

Alfajores

They deserve a whole entrie of their own. Stay tuned.

Bocaditos bonafide and cabsha

Yummy dulce de leche is covered by a thin layer of chocolate. I'm eating one as I write this. It's heaven.

Dulce de leche

Of course

Ice Cream

Argentine ice cream rocks. It's lighter than American ice cream and with more intense flavors. Apparently this is because it has less air and less cream but I don't really know. And of course, it's made with Argentine milk which makes all the difference. It's relatively expensive for Argentinians - one reason why ice cream was such a treat when I was a kid - with a kilo costing between $5-7 depending where you buy it.

Flavors are also signficantly different from those available here. There is strawberry (choice of water or creme based), chocolate and vanilla, of course, but much better are dulce de leche granizado (dulce de leche with shaved dark chocolate), crema americana, sambayon, tramontana, mantecol and others. We ate ice cream at least once every day and I already miss it!

Paso de los Toros Pomelo Light

This is a diet grapefruit soda manufactured by Pepsico which is actually delicious. The regular version is quite good, but the light version, which is less sweet, is even better. If you like grapefruit soda, you'd go crazy over it. Alas, it's not available in the US. Which is difficult to understand as it's just sooooooooooooooooo good. Please, someone at Pepsi, bring it to the US!

Now, as for things that are not good in Argentina:

Cookies

They suck, they are dry and lack flavor.

Cereal

Just try to find cereal without sugar. I dare you. Try (OK, maybe a health food store, but not at the supermarket).

Variety

In Buenos Aires you can find a number of ethnic restaurants, but forget about having non-Argentinian food (other than Chinese or Spanish) almost anywhere else.

Chocolate

Vastly inferior to American or European chocolate.

Alfajores are Argentina's unofficial national treat. An alfajor is basically a soft cookie with a sweet filling. The cookie is usually cakey, though in some versions it's phillo-like, and while traditional alfajores were filled with jam (quince jam is particularly popular), the most delicious Argentine alfajores have a dulce de leche filling. Some alfajores are covered, most typically with a powdered sugar or a dark chocolate bath, though many of the alfajores from the Northwest as well as many of new "alfajores artesanales" (i.e. the non-mass produced kind) are plain.

Several of the northern Argentine provinces have their own type of alfajores, and as during our trip to Salta, Jujuy, Tucumán and Córdoba we were able to sample some of the local fare.

As far as we could tell the alfajores from Salta and Tucumán were the same, small, with thick, dry, light colored cookies, apparently perfumed by anis seed, and a thick layer of filling. A traditional filling from these provinces is dulce de cayote, the cayote being a type of pumpkin. The alfajores are bathed in a sweet egg bath. We didn't really like them much, even those with a dulce de leche filling. They were OK, but not nearly as good as other alfajores. As far as I remember the alfajores from Tucumán were very similar, and also not remarkable.

We enjoyed the alfajores in Córdoba more. These have a spongier cookie and a sweet bath, they are a bit larger than their northwestern neighbors, though also offered in a variety of fruit fillings. We only tried the dulce de leche, though. Alfajores are big business in Córdoba and we found dozens of brands for sale. At least two brands have their own stores, where they sell a variety of their own products. We probably tried about a dozen different brands (I was in the search for the best alfajor), and we decided that those from La Quinta were by far the most yummy. Alas, we tried those at their store in Carlos Paz and weren't able to buy any before we left (not available at the bus station in Córdoba, FYI).

At La Quinta we also tried their alfajore santafesino, in the style of the province of Santa Fe. This one had a phillo type cookie and, while messy, was also delicious. We later found out that other national brands have this style of alfajores though we didn't find any we liked as much.

The most famous alfajores in the whole country, however, are those made by Havanna in Mar del Plata. Mar del Plata is a city in the Atlantic coast visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists during the summer. Historically few would leave without taking some boxes of Havanna alfajores. These alfajores are in the style of the typical commercial alfajores, with a very cakey cookie, dulce de leche filling (though they've also always had quince jam and lately they have a number of mousse fillings) and either a powdered sugar or dark chocolate cover. But they are the best. Don't ask me why, but they are just the yummiest.

In the last few years Havanna has developed competition from seemingly dozens of other brands, both commercial and artesanales, based all over Buenos Aires province. Many of these have stores both in Mar del Plata and other cities in the Atlantic coast. During our trip to the area we made it a point to try as many as possible, hoping to find one we liked more than Havanna. We didn't. In a way this is fortunate, as Havanna now has stores all over the country and at the airport (but if you are flying American don't count on being able to do any shopping at the airport, no matter how early you get there - they arrange their counter lines so you have to spend hours in line and can only make it to the counter right before your plane leaves), though I'd have liked to find an alfajor I liked more that came from a smaller producer.

In addition to specialty producers, the large cookie companies also produce alfajores. These are mostly sold at kiosks and supermarkets and they really can't compare in quality either with Havanna or the other specialty producers. Perhaps for that reason most of them seem to have branched out from traditional dulce de leche fillings to mousse fillings in a variety of flavors. They didn't really appeal to me.

Many of the specialty producers also sell "conitos" in addition to alfajores. The conitos are their version of Havannets (see pictures) - cookies covered by a mountain of dulce de leche and dipped in dark or whie chocolate - and they are delicious. Of course I tried them at many places and though these were generally excellent I still prefer Havannets.

Havanna alfajores are available at some Latin stores in the US, if you see them by all means give them a try.