Grains of Salt

I actually don't have that many pictures of food. Part of the reason is because I'm a bad Asian and inadequately document what I eat. It's true—when I look back at the photos I took in San Francisco, very few are of food. But it's also different because I lived there for six years. Photos tend to reveal what the photographer considers novelty. In France, I took pictures of their infinitude of cheeses. In New Mexico, chiles hanging from beams. In Singapore, it didn't matter what I took a picture of, there would be food in it.

So what of Argentina? What are the novelties of its cuisine? And why don't I have more photos of it? There are two hints above—cheese and chiles—that I'll go into more later. But first, some context and caveats.

It took me longer than I thought it would to do a post about food. Early on, in laying out topics to cover, I figured food would be an easy and obvious one, replete with abundant food porn to make people jealous and hungry. Food is so important and so necessarily prolific. It is, unsarcastically, a reason to travel. It is, literally, a reason to be. Food unites cultures. So I wanted to make sure that I gave it proper consideration.

Which brings me to the caveat. I fear that a lot of what I'm about to write, and maybe what I have written already, may come off as—to use the Spanish word—snobismo. So let me just say now that this is a positive review. The food here is good, it's just qualified with a "but". And aren't the "but"s more interesting to talk about? Obviously, "good" is totally subjective too, in this case measured against a baseline that is San Francisco cuisine. In fact, you might not even believe I lived in San Francisco if I didn't exhibit at least some snobismo, right?

At this point I'm no longer sure which way I'm digging, so whatever. Here it is: the food of Argentina, one "but" at a time.

Meat

A holy altar.

The rumors are true: the beef is amazing. Beyond that, it's consistently excellent. I have not had a bad steak here. For the quality you get, it's also incredibly affordable. However much it costs to get grass-fed, USDA Prime, organic whatnot steaks in the U.S., you can get the same thing here for $4/lb. T-bone, skirt, or ribeye, the price doesn't change that much. The beef permeates all. Argentines consume about 150 pounds of red meat per capita each year. That average has actually been on a downtrend. Historical consumption has been as high as 400 pounds—over a pound a day for the typical Argentine. They are now, mercifully, scaling back. After all, there's pork and chicken, and lamb, too.

Even though I'm in short supply of food photos, this is where I have no choice but to unload the bulk of them. Meat is the dominant food—the alpha meal.

An average Argentine week. (The seventh day is leftovers.)

Not much more needs to be said to reinforce a stereotype, so I'll just tell a story that's tangentially related to meat. It was an afternoon around Halloween and a light rain had just begun. We were cooking up a few snack sausages in a pan, having opened the windows to enjoy the break from the heat as well as let the sausage scent escape our apartment. Suddenly, from behind the wall dividing the kitchen, appeared a spider—let's say it was the size of the one on Spider-Man's chest. As I startled back at the shock of its size, a burst of sausage grease must have hit it square on, because it slipped off the wall and directly into the pan of sizzling meat parts. It was there, helplessly and in horror, that we witnessed its agonizing demise, its embalming in oil, its shriveling up into an increasingly crispy ball of disgustingness. It took me some time to regain the composure to fish it out with tongs; still more to cope with what we had just experienced. Horrifying. The sausage was pretty good though.

Moving on...

Seafood

It's out there, somewhere.

Buenos Aires sits on the mouth of a river so wide that it's practically ocean. So it's a mystery that "seafood" here spans the following realm of possibilities: salmon, prawns, and the occasional trout or hake. There are hardly any pescaderías, probably one for every twenty of the carnicerías that dominate street corners. How can a coastal city be so barren of fish? We've heard a few theories offered by porteños. One said it's because any alternative choice of protein has to go up against the best meat in the world, which is available at a lower price. Fair enough. Seafood is also harder to cook, which in combination with its higher price, encourages a culture that never developed a taste for it. Another theory was that because Buenos Aires is on the southern shore of the Río de la Plata, gravity forces all the sediment down to its shores, driving the fish up to Uruguay. I won't think too hard about the science behind that one, but the result is the same: less surf, more turf.

Vegetables

Only in small concentrations.

Also known as the food my food eats. The official salad of Argentina is, indisputably: lettuce, tomato, onion. If it's a salad as a meal, add carrots. The dressing is the bottle of olive oil that's sitting on the table. To be fair, there are fancier salads out there, and it's possible to make a decent one on your own by visiting a local vegetable stand. But a green like kale, with its superfood-level celebrity status in the Bay Area, struggles hard to find work here. I never thought I'd miss kale.

We've asked Argentines point-blank what the deal is with the vegetables in this expansive, agriculturally pluripotent country. There isn't much of an explanation. They just don't eat that many vegetables. As with seafood, price can be a factor too. When shopping for a meal, our greens reliably end up costing twice as much as our reds. The market speaks.

Carbs

Because meat gets lonely.

Argentina's Italian influence comes through most proudly in two ways—the melody of its Spanish and the competency of its pastas. It's a dream to live across the street from a fresh pasta factory and be able to make a perfect 10-minute meal with what started the day as just flour and water (and sometimes egg; also pumpkin gnocchi, available every other day). I don't think I'll ever be able to buy dry spaghetti again.

Empanadas fall into the category of awesome carbs, too. Especially awesome because they are essentially vessels for delivering more meat.

But—here comes the "but"—it's really hard to find good bread. One of the things I miss most is the heel of the Acme baguette that I tear off as soon as it's in my hands. Here, the crust lacks crunch and the crumb lacks character. It had been such a dearth that when we bit into some frybread that we bought on a bus for two pesos, we erupted in euphoria. (It didn't hurt that it was probably made with lard.) That was the best bread we had had in Argentina, and it was somewhere in the desert on the way to a town with 4,000 people. If I get desperate enough, it will be worth going back there.

This shortcoming in bread seems to carry over to its liquid form. I am by no means a beer connoisseur, but I seem to keep wishing that it were more flavorful and less flat. Before we had given up hope, we tried a restaurant that offered a "beer tasting menu"—a few courses paired with their variety of thoroughly underwhelming homebrews. It was a very uncomfortable experience, though the main reason was because they had the A/C off and the lights turned way up, which made an already warm night miserable. People were literally shading themselves with menus. The restaurant was also playing the movie Up on a projector screen for some reason. We left our beers and hurriedly paid our bill. As we were leaving, the power went out, dousing the restaurant in merciful darkness. A fitting end to a bizarre night #estamosenargentina.

Dairy

Or, the leche that has not been used for dulce de leche.

Obviously, the story begins and ends with dulce de leche, the national goo of Argentina. In between, there are a few quirks. The standard definition of a cappuccino includes cinnamon and cocoa on top. The previously mentioned bread problem is aggravated by a lack of butter. Instead, they seem to prefer a sort of cream cheese spread. Indeed, soft cheeses are floppy kings here. Gruyere exists, but it sags. Even the Parmesan is kind of Provoloney. Reggiano-level firmness? Forget about it. Speaking of things that are impossible to find...

Spice

[No photo on file.]

We arrive at gripe number one. In Argentina, the fire ends at the grill. Spicy means garlic. Spicy means black pepper. Really, it was shockingly difficult to find fresh ground black pepper, not to mention a decent grinder. Obtaining cayenne required several visits to specialty stores and not a small amount of luck. Chile peppers are fickle and often feeble. You need at least half a dozen to have hope for any kick. At a restaurant, "picante" gives you a faint memory of a tingle. "Muy picante" is a side of Tabasco or Sriracha at most. Why, Argentina, why? "It kills the flavor," they say. Agree to disagree. This could be a difference that may never be reconciled.

Accompaniments

It's the little things.

As serious as the meat is, it's hard not to giggle when a ceramic penguin vomits wine into your glass. It sure seems touristy, but pingüinos are prevalent enough that locals will get them too. All it is is a penguin-shaped carafe that holds house wine. They are listed on menus as simply pingüino. Why a penguin? I asked my tutor and he helpfully explained that it's because the jar is shaped like a penguin. I think something got lost in translation there.

The thing next to the pingüino is a soda sifón. It dispenses soda water while keeping what remains in the bottle from getting flat. As my tutor also explained, these devices produce water with more bubbles than the typical agua con gas, thus imparting a better flavor to the water. Sure, why not. It's cute though: you can order them for your home and the sifón-man brings them to your porch like milk bottles, collecting your empty ones for recharging.

The above photo might be the most Argentinian one I've ever taken: a pingüino, soda sifón, and a basket of mediocre bread. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Sobremesa

It's easy to judge from here.

I'm okay with the snobismo that comes with claiming that San Francisco might have the most diverse offering of excellent food in the world. I don't think it's entirely wrong, and not every city needs to strive to be the same. A culture eats what it wants to, and in many aspects is what it eats.

What San Francisco and the rest of the U.S. does not have nearly as much of is an appetite for time. In Argentina, and more broadly in Spanish-speaking countries, and even more broadly in many parts of the world, a meal is an event. You'll start dinner with friends at 9 at the earliest, more like 10, and there's no way it's over in less than two hours. The arrival of the check never precedes the request for la cuenta, por favor. In general, a place closes when the last customers leave.

The same concept applies at home. For the traditional Argentine family, Sundays are sacred, not just for church and football, but for the meal. Plans with friends hold no jurisdiction. Whether it's an asado or several kilograms of pasta made that afternoon, the whole family must be present. To that requirement, food is secondary—no "but"s about it.

For now, it's fine if the bread isn't what I'm used to. The lack of spice is still egregious, but forgivable. From Argentina, I will try to bring back what I can of the pairing of food with time. And I'm definitely bringing back a pingüino.