Comida Argentina

Observant folk, knowledgeable about the likes of Miss Roth, may have noticed the rather large gap in her writings thus far. I am talking of course about the titley-mentioned grub. The topic has indeed popped up here and there of course, but here I plan to expand on this a little.

Ok, so what do we know about the food of Argentina. I have mentioned of course the enormous steaks. Patagonian lamb is relatively famous, dulce de leche and the Italian influenced ice-cream? But what do Argentines really eat? My travels have taken me from living with a family and their cook, the stylish restaurants of Buenos Aires' Palermo as well as food-on-the-move as I embark on camping, not to mention the fact that I am travelling with a vegetarian which means there has to be an element of creativity in the search for sustainance.

Nowadays, the first thing I think when considering of the food of Argentina is the Milanesa. This is essentially thinly cut, breaded meat (beef or chicken) which is shallw fried and served with puré (mash), fries or salad. Graciela taught me how to make it and which spices to use and I consider it yummy enough to make at home. Milanesa is on pretty much every every standard menu and is a fairly reliable dish.

A note about the puré - it is 90% fantastic, probably due to the heaps of cream they pour in it. So yes Comida Argentina is definitely the corinary heart disease's dream.

Pizzas: the Lonely Planet advises too only ever affirm that Argentines make the world's best. Doubting this is a bit of a faux pas and isn't going to make you any friends, you might as well tell them that you think Tevez is Man U's weak link, El Diego really wasn't all that and quite frankly you don't think that a bunch of wind swept islands are really worth getting upset about. Luckily, even a pizza ignoramous like me can appreciate them. Thankfully as does Robin as they feature at the top of the food-that-needn't-always-feature-meat list.

Strangely, eggs feature everywhere. Salads, tarts, empenadas (mini cornish pasties) and more. Noothing much to say about them other than the little buggers sneak up chopped up small in pretty much everything. If being veggie is just about possible, being vegan would be just silly.

The big disappointment has been salads, considering the fantabulous fresh vegetables out here the salad opptions are usually pretty dull and unvaried. Bizarrely cucumber is never in a salad, no idea why and instead the basic 3 are lettuce, tomato and onion. My Argy friend Ceci though the cucumber addition to be a bit of an oddity.

For Christmas the family very generously invited me to spend with them and I had really hoped to cook something english but here I was seriously hampered... Firstly, bread sauce doesn't really go with barbequeued meat, it was somewhat too late to embark on a chrimble pud and most amusingly is that there isn't even a Spanish translation for Parsnip, the dictionary says a sweet cream coloured root vegetable, the same shape as a carrot. So I took along the giant tub of Celebrations I had brought with me and hoped for the best. So yes, the food was mostly meat, potato salad and what I can only describe as Palmheart Roulade.

Ahhh the Palmheart, a delicious delicacy which is very popular here. It tastes a little like artichoke heart and pops up here and there. Fundamentally yum. Now imagine a thin layer of sponge cake, like a giant unravelled swiss roll with a thin coating of sweet sticky something. Chop up a load of palmhearts, smother in 'Salsa Golf' (a popular mayonaise and ketchup combo) and roll it up, slice and serve with the main dish. Sounds rank? Yessirree. Two slices of this were on my christmas dinner plate.

Gosh now that I have got going I don't know where to stop, so I will leave it here. If you want to read about the phenomenal fresh pasta place with a daily changing menu, have a gander at Rob's blog:
http://gibboniser.blogspot.com/

and some pictures he has uploaded:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/gibboniser