Posts Tagged ‘bread’

Argentina is proud of its European heritage – it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that they, on the whole, consider themselves more European than anywhere else in South America, and to be fair they probably are. Except in the North there is very little indigeneous population, and looking at the faces on the streets and avenidas of Buenos Aires you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Milan or Barcelona.

This results in two things – one is a reputation in the rest of South America of a certain arrogance, that the Argentines (due to the Italian and Spanish bloodlines) consider themselves better than the rest of the “conquered” continent (leading to the joke about how does an Argentine commit suicide – he jumps off his ego) and the second result is the milanesa.

A Tasty Milanesa Sandwich

The Milanesa is everywhere. These things crop up in Europe under a variety of names depending on the country but what we are dealing with here is breaded steak (or veal or chicken), either served as a sandwich (as above) or on a plate with chips.

The thing you get to notice after a while here is that while the food isn’t bad, and is sufficiently “European” to count as familiar (no Guinea Pig here), by and large it is simply the same. Eat out in a standard cafe or restaurant and, once you’ve been here for a while, you will be able to recite the menu off-pat before picking it up.

There will be a section of coffee and medialunas, then the sandwich section – cheese, ham, cheese and ham (all options toasted or not), milanesa or beef (pay extra for lettuce or tomato). There may be a couple of empanada options, then there will be the Minuta section (the name presumably refers to length of time it takes to cook, one of the more serious cases of false advertising I’ve ever come across) which will contain more meat and carbs, this time on a plate. The milanesa will come plain with chips or Napolitana (with tomato and herb sauce) or a la Pizza (as Napolitana but with melted cheese). This little lot followed by the Pizza section itself which will feature a bewildering selection, none of them really resembling what we know as pizza, Argentine pizza being more of a slice of bread with melted cheese and cold ham and pickled red peppers.

Now, don’t get me wrong, with the possible exception of the pizza, none of the above is bad and I have eaten the length and breadth of this menu many a time, but that’s kind of the point – all places have the same choice of food. Given the heritage and the culinary possibilities that heritage could entail (I’m not sure I dare do a post on what passes as cheese in this country – I would get far too angry), it’s kind of a letdown.

A pile of Facturas

This is what breakfast looks like in Argentina. Every couple of blocks or so you stumble across a panaderia, the Argentine equivalent of a bakers or boulangerie. What’s unusual about this is that bread in this country is actually pretty poor, but what they do do well is sweet stuff. From Dulce de Leche to ice cream to alfajor biscuits to gallons of full-fat Coke it’s a miracle there are any teeth left. And in keeping with this cavity-inducing culinary lifestyle. breakfast is, for the most part, sweet too.

Facturas can be lots of different shapes and sizes, but the basics are the same. They’re cakes. That you have for breakfast. The most common is the medialuna (literally halfmoon) and all cafes do a coffee and medialuna combo in the morning, although my favourite way of eating them is warm, filled with ham and cheese.

Now, I like me a bit of food, and do seem to eat rather a lot and rather well here in Buenos Aires so I’ve decided to document some of the food that is considered typical here. In order to do this I will have to go out and buy the food, remember to take a picture of it, and eat the food. It’s a dirty job, but for you, O Faithful Reader, I am prepared to make the sacrifice.

So, today I will start with what could be considered as the bedrock of Argentinian fast food.

Choripan

Meet the Choripan. So called from the name of the sausage (Chorizo) and the fact it’s served in bread (pan). A slight digression here on the word Chorizo. In Spain, it refers to a thinly sliced, spicy cured sausage. Here it refers to the pork sausage you see above, unless you’re talking about a Bife de Chorizo which is a sirloin steak.

So anyway, the choripan is the Argentine version of the burger, or the kebab. the national portable meat served in bread snack. In true Argentinian fashion, it is not messed with in any way when it arrives on your plate. Enter into any Parrilla (a restaurant containing a huge charcoal grill, which serves bascially meat and little else and pronounced, here at least, paree-sha) and above the grill will be a stack of already cooked Chorizos. When a Choripan is ordered, the sausage is taken from the top rack, sliced in half, butterfly style, and placed innard-down on the grill. Once nicely browned, it’s removed and put in between 2 bits of bread. No gherkins, no ketchup, no lettuce, no tomato. That’s it.

However, you are of course free to add your own condiments, most usually this will be a liberal dollop of the wonderfully named chimichurri, a mix of oil, vinegar, garlic and chili. Occasionally there will be a little bowl of chopped onion and tomato salsa, which goes nicely with the bread, but it’s the chimichurri that really does the business.

So, there you have it – the perfect lunchtime snack, pre-drinking preparation or post-bar munchies. It really does do it all, why do you need anything else? And as a bonus, my local Parrilla is all decked out in traditional gaucho style, which makes me think of English Narrowboat decorations. Here are two of the tables:

Tables