It is about Argentine food. Love it or hate it, everyone has an opinion on it. For the most part I do like it. Empanadas, steak, choripan, Chimichurri sauce, Salsa Criolla, vino tinto, the occassional suprema milanesa (chicken) Love it! Oh yeah, let´s not forget about the glorious french fries down here either.
I am going to focus on restaurant food. For the most part, go into any restaurant in any price bracket and the food will basically be the same. See above listings, with a another list of things I dare not eat. I have never had a fantastic pasta in a restaurant. The pasta is always over cooked, with some sort of bland sauce. Although cannoli is decent here, but it is made with crepes, not pasta.
Now, look in the panadería window, when was the last time you have seen pastries and cakes like this? I would have to say, not since 1978. But most recently I saw very similar things in a cookbook for the newlywed woman dating from 1953, found in my laundry room back in Vancouver. It was the kind of cookbook that not only had recipes of lurid green canapés, shrimp cocktails, and strange casseroles. But also a check list to on the quality of preparing your coffee correctly, and to make sure you smell sweet for your husband, put on lipstick and a fresh apron, and be sure to have his favorite cocktail in hand when he arrives home. Oh yeah, and do not complain to him about your boring, tedious day, just go to your nice family doctor, and he will perscribe some lovely happy pills to get the housework done in a jiffy, and some other ones to help you relax at the end of your day.
The food from this recipe book, is still found on the tables HERE in Argentina! Food has barely changed since at least 1953!
My theory is this: Is it possible that Argentines prefer to have their food remain the same, as there is so much change in their political and economic climate, never really knowing how the day will end, their food is the only stable constant thing they can control, take comfort in, know what it is and how it will be?
Second theory: The pasta is awful here because it was mostly bachelors that moved here from Italy, and not a lot of women (who did all the cooking back home), therefore the pasta recipes were lost?
Hmmm....this is some food for thought. Don´t you think?
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I heard that American style Chinese food originated from the male Chinese who came over to help build the railroad. They didn't know how to cook either hence the crappy taste of American style Chinese food as opposed to authentic genuine version.
yes very true argentine food in the main is crap and I know been living here for 6 years and unless you eat steak steak and more steak you are limited.
But we better be careful these days not to critisize Buenos Aires according to a blogger called yanqui mike who is on some powerful happy drug and for him argentina is just heaven on earth
mmmm...just the pasta is crappy, yes the steak is good. The sugar and salt consumption horrifies me. And lettuce is a vegetable, but I don't think it really qualifies in adding a high quotient of anti-oxidents to the diet. Although drinking a ton of mate does.
I have no problem with Yanqui Mike. It was him I was telling my theory to over coffee recently. He really does love living here. I love living here. It is not an easy country. It is Argentina.
And I understand his point about watching what you say on the group websites...I belong to one, but no longer participate much, because they are always ranting about stupid things and getting their knickers in a twist. And there is a journalist on this site, who hangs out there and uses the information on his site. As a situation of mine showed up on his blog. Which infact left me feeling a bit odd about it.
may i ask why anonymous, why you continue to live here, if you don't really love it?
Oh my gosh! I have the same theory about the food in Italy! I think you hit the nail on the head. My Argentine boyfriend agrees too.
Though his mother is Italian and makes pasta by hand. :-) So maybe the good pasta in Argentina is that which is made at home... I dunno.
But I agree about the food being the one constant thing among such uncertainty in other parts of life.
(I also wonder if the wonderful food here in italy is just a government ploy to distract us from the bureaucracy, ha ha)
may i ask why anonymous, why you continue to live here, if you don't really love it?
Why shouldnt I live here? Do you have to be addicted to mate cafe medialunas and tango to live in argentina. You come across as a narrow minded peronista
Do you remember when Madonna was in BsAs filming Evita (Fuera Madonna!) and she made the faux pas of criticizing food/restaurants in Argentina?
This might be an overgeneralization, but I couldn't avoid creme suaces and cheese. New to menus and unfamiliar with the code words for sauces, I'd unwittingly always end up with gnocchi in creme sauce or pasta in creme sauce. Then there's the fondness for mayonnaise ;)
But I love the asparagus in November! I prefer to make whole wheat pasta at home topped with asparagus!And ues, I love the way I'm prompted for media lunas when I order coffee or the delicious hot chocolate here!
I swear to god my roommate eats an entire 500ml bag (yes, mayonnaisse come in bags here), per week. I am not kidding!
Yes Madonna, is or was a vegetarian and health fanatic. So I imagine it was difficult for her to order anything. But anything that comes out of her mouth is "contraversial".
My favorite "vegetarian" salad has chicken on it.
That first paragraph really does sum up the food here, which I do indeed still like and accept, after a year. I'm sorry, empanadas and bloody rare steaks (which I don't really eat a lot of, more choripans than anything, sorry vegetarians, I know - GROSS!) and those FRENCH FRIES (with mayonnaisse, siempre)
And what's up with the blandness of the food? Like the whole notion that every porteño has some crazy sensative stomach condition that prevents them from even eating the local chimichurri, which you have to eat since its the ONLY thing remotely related to something spicy. Just the site of a Bolivian woman on the street corner selling those tiny little red and green chile peppers makes 'em run for the toilet screaming fire, FIRE!
And I like mayonnaisse, which is for honkeys and love Argentina, which is for everyon, even though I love to point out the idiosyncrocies of life here - like the SERVICE in restaurants!? Its rare these days that my order is ever correct. You ask for one thing, they bring something different, never fails and the only conclusion I can draw is that they really don't give a damn since their wages are so low, no one tips and they just simple foget, get busy with another task or...? OK, done.
interesting post. Mayo in a bag--ok. My British friend sneered at american cake frosting in a cardboard "can" until I reminded her that the brits have Rice Pudding & egg custard in tins- plastic touches so much of our food now.
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