Eating Argentina

First law of tango-thermodynamics:

A tango dancer must carry her weight.

• How to eat garlic and not reek

• Maple Walnut Pancakes (recipe, below)

• Fagioli Toscana (recipe, below)

I have grown to love the food here in Argentina, despite the fact that it doesn’t reflect the diversity of the food in my home, San Francisco Bay Area (few places do). Still, fresh ingredients are plentiful, the wine is getting better all the time (and still cheap). You can compose your own fresh salad in most restaurants from a long list of ingredients that usually include radichetta (a chicory), arugula (rucula), romaine, tomatoes, sugar beets (remolacha), grated carrots (zanahoria), peas (arveja), corn (choclo), and more. Naturally, there is a huge Spanish influence, but also the food culture is very Italian.

On nearly every city street, you can dine on a plate of pasta or pizza for about five bucks easily. I love the ubiquitous empanadas, dulce de leche, the calabasas (they call it pumpkin, but it’s sweeter and has a silkier texture), and the tartas (Argentine version of quiche, often loaded with more vegetable than egg/cream/cheese). Many streets have a produce vendor. It’s summer now so the fruits—peaches, nectarines, pears, honeydew—are sweet and juicy and cheaper than in the US. The grapes are plump but there are no seedless ones. I miss my staples, broccoli rabe and escarole, but the chard here, a different species, is earthy and loamy like the wet pampas. If nudged by a friend, I’ll savor a piece of bife chorizo or bife lomo, the famous grass-fed beef. There are those who swear by the bife chorizo and others by the lomo. Most agree, that the former is tastier and the latter scores higher on the tender notes. I’ve enjoyed the rib-eye here, also, finding it fork-tender, juicy, and tasty.

However, omnivore though I am, meat, especially red, weighs in as a condiment in my overall diet. I am an unapologetic carbo-loader, starch lover, and phooey on Atkins (may he digest in peace). Left to my own cooking, I feast on whole grains and legumes, nuts and seeds, the foundation of my diet. My body loves their slow-release energy. My taste buds love their variety, subtly different flavors, and adaptability to an array of seasonings. My desert-island diet would be any dark bitter green cooked in olive oil and garlic and a loaf of Acme Bread’s whole wheat walnut. If fate is kind, I’ll also ask for a plate of cannelini beans, cooked Tuscan style (see recipe below, Fagioli Toscana.)

Here, even if you eat low on the scale, filling up on pizza and pasta, it’s all too easy to load on refined grain products. Refined carbos, this is my pet bugaboo—every food lover has one. It’s not the bread or the pasta or pizza but the fact of wheat that is overly processed and bereft of not just its native flavor but also its nutritious germ and bran, aka fiber. This is not new info for you, but it perplexes me to no end that something as bogus as the Atkins diet would get such traction among so many otherwise sensible eaters. OK, let’s get it straight—the fiber in the few fruits or veggies that Atkins allows is not the same as the fiber in grains (of which there are a vast array and spectrum, worth going into elsewhere). All fiber is not created equal – there are several types, pectins, lignins, and honestly, I forget all I once knew about them. But you can research them–and trust me on this.

Photo above is Dany, my pasta dealer, corner of Laprida & Beruti. Dany knows his dough—I love his spinach, red pepper, and egg pastas; that’s a plate of sorrentinos—a morbidly obese ravioli stuffed with a mix of cheeses, yum. If you’ve ever had the urge to bite into a pot belly, these are reasonable alternatives.

So, I cook and eat at home a lot here–and, because I’m always busy, it has to be easy, simple, and natural. I buy most of my grains and legumes from a “dietetica” store called El Reino de Vegetal, run by my friend German (himself, below right, on the corner of Anchorena and Arenales). Despite the out-moded sound of “dietetica,” these stores are the closest to our health or natural foods store, where you can buy nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and more in bulk. However, in addition to the natural foodstuffs, for some reason they also seem to carry sugary soda drinks. Beware of products that say “sin azucar” (sugar-free). They often contain sacarina or aspartamo. Schiffo! (NJ Italian for “I am thoroughly disgusted!”)

When I first arrived in Buenos Aires, not being a big breakfast eater, I would purchase a few of the “facturas” or pastries at the omnipresent panaderias, or bakeries, or confiterias. They still look attractive. But after a few months, I couldn’t stomach them any more, except for the medialuna salada, which I still like on occasion with my coffee, pan-toasted with butter (taste the pampas grass in it!) and raspberry jam and/or dulce de leche. Besides being made of highly refined flour, sugar, fat (not butter as far as my taste buds can tell), the pastries all seem to originate from some central baker in some undisclosed location (maybe the Casa Rosada). Although the pastries may be baked on site, clearly they are cookie cutter products, perhaps frozen, all the exact same taste, size, cut no matter which baker you go to. Also, I find there is a bitter after-taste in some, as if they are sprayed with a preservative. I wish I could say that one finds the same delicate and flaky pastries as the city’s patron, Paris, but hélas. . . ce n’est pas vrai. There are places that offer exceptional pastries (I’ll write later about one, Florencio, a hidden gem of a cafe on a certain Parisian-like pasaje).

• I don’t cook from recipes – so this is to the best of my knowledge. Contact me if you have any problems and we’ll try to clear them up.

MAPLE WALNUT PANCAKES

This is my favorite breakfast, which I eat almost daily, after a swim in a local pool or walking/yoga workout. They go well with my one mug of industrial-strength joe (Peet’s French Roast).

Tip: I mix the dry ingredients and the wet ones separately ahead of time and store them.  Each morning, I mix just enough wet and dry ingredients for what I’m going to cook and eat that day—it’s fast, easy, natural.

DRY INGREDIENTS: Mix together equal parts whole wheat flour and rolled or ground oats (instant oats OK); add one teaspoon of baking soda for each cup of flour and a big pinch of salt. Shake together in a plastic bag or other container.

WET INGREDIENTS: Mix together one egg, one cup of cream (or milk—sometimes I add orange juice or water to cut the cream), one tablespoon olive oil (or melted butter), one teaspoon vanilla, and my secret ingredient (optional) one teaspoon maple flavoring (I found a 2-oz bottle of Shank’s Maple Flavor at the big Amish market in Annapolis, MD, and brought it down two with me). You can store the wet mixture for up to five days or so. Even if it begins to sour, the fermentation acid will react kindly with the baking soda, so don’t worry.

When you’re ready to cook a pancake, mix together enough wet and dry ingredients to make a loose batter. Add walnuts or other nuts to the batter. Fry the batter in butter (or any vegetable oil, if you prefer). When the edges of the pancake begin to look dry, flip it and cook on the other side.

Serve with a dollop of dulce de leche (a comfort food up there with mom’s milk) and sliced fruit. Maple syrup might be the only food I miss on occasion. But I’m telling these cakes, a kinda cross between a muffin and a pancake, more than satisfy that hankering.

This meal lasts me the whole day until dinner, which I eat, like the locals, any time from 10 p.m. on. Oh, some times during the day, I’ll snack on plain yogurt and all that fresh fruit. (Energy tip: I brought packets of that Emergence-C, loaded with vitamins and minerals, which I add to my mineral water—I never take supplements, they repeat on me.)

Lately, I’ve been cooking up a big batch of brown rice and of cannelini beans to have on hand for the week. Lentils are next week’s menu (iron!). In the photo to the left, you can see one evening’s delicious feast of chard cooked in Corazon olive oil with leeks (called puero).The cherry tomatoes are sweet. And the calabasas, which mercifully is sold peeled and sliced here, is oven-roasted. My oven has two speeds, high and low. I roasted it on the high temp for about 30 minutes all told, flipping the 1/2-slices once.

Salt, pepper, olive oil, onions, and garlic are staples—as are hot red pepper. It’s hard to find red pepper as hot as I like it here because, for reasons I am still deconstructing, Argentines like their food suave (gentle) and blanda (mild). The piquant chimmichurri sauce, served with the barbecued meats, is an outstanding diversion from this general rule. Go figure. The cannelini beans in the lavender bowl (below) are creamy and lovely. One of my top-ten food memories is a plate of such beans, served  in a nondescript cafe in Florence with nothing but salt, pepper, and puddles of thick green olive oil. Oh, yes, bread, too. (Eat your heart out, Atkins.)

The olive oil here, from Mendoza like the Argentine wine, is really richly flavored and not too expensive. So, wear it, drink it, bathe in it. And, in case you missed it, I just gave you my recipe for Fagioli Toscana: My preference is to soak the beans for 8 hours or overnight, cook them with salt to taste (important, to salt them during the cooking, not afterward). They take about an hour to cook til tender–test and don’t overcook them. Serve these babies on a plate doused in extra virgin and ground black pepper. The bread I like here is pan integrale (whole grain). Look for these dark little palm-size pancitos negritos, “little black breads.”

Also in the photo at right: Gruyère and chicken matambre from Al Queso, Queso, a local upscale chain, which I avoided when I first arrived, since many Argentines can’t afford to shop there. I cave in sometimes because I pass one on my morning walk. It is filled with seductive cheeses begging me to take them home, beautiful charcuterie, wines, and many good earthly delights. The matambre (seems to be a contraction of matar, to kill, and hambre, hunger) is a cold cut of sorts. It’s a meat–chicken or pork—rolled with cooked carrots, Italian herb mixture, hard-cooked egg. You eat it as a cold appetizer.

I’ll report more on the wines as I rediscover them. In the photo at left is one of the most popular mid-range (but high-end for here) brands, Luigi Bosca. It’s served in most good restaurants. Norton and Valmont are el cheapo (like 12 to 19 pesos per bottle). But they’re highly palatable. That Luigi Bosca is chardonnay (50 pesos, or about $15). It’s oakie the way I like it. I also drink St. Felicien chardonnay  (44 pesos per bottle). It also has plenty of roble (oak).

That’s all the food news that fits the print for now —- check back in a week or so for posts on pasta, other dishes, and on my favorite restaurants.

Buon appetito!