Que vas a comer vos?

So since dinner is in about half an hour, I figured I'd do a quick blog post about some of the Argentine food. Much of the stereotypes I've heard are true...they are very much a "meat and potatoes" culture leaving many of us americanos craving a good salad. Also, what the portenos consider "spicy" would not light the palettes of many of my spicy food lovers back home. Aside from my first night, everything my host mother has made has been excellent...some classic Argentinan, some Italian and some inbetween.

Milanesa: This falls under the "classic Argentinian" label. It's beef (or chicken) pounded very thin, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and either fried or baked in the oven. My house mother made it for dinner last week, and it was delish. I had it at a restaurant this past weekend as a sandwich, and ordered it "completo" which meant with ham, cheese, hardboiled egg, lettuce and tomato. Even more delish. Keep in mind, pretty much any sandwich can be ordered "completo" style...including hamburgers.

Empanadas: Come in all varieties, though my favorite have been the pollo (chicken) and carne (steak or ground beef) ones. They also have jamon y queso (ham and cheese), queso y cebolla (cheese and onion) and verduras (vegetables). I've found that these are a fantastic solution for a quick, cheap way to eat. I really don't see myself getting sick of them anytime soon, though students that came for the intensive month tell me it will happen.

Pasta/polenta: Always with a lot of cheese, and sometimes a lot of olive oil. Different than I'm used to, but quite tasty all around. Pasta here tastes fresher than it does in the Estados Unidos, probably because it is. I think it's much easier (and cheaper) to get fresh pasta here than it would be back home...but I haven't investigated that claim too much.

Now to dive a little deeper into the reasons food seems to be the way it is. Yesterday we discussed the lack of spice in my traditions/culture of Argentina class...and yes, the professor agreed that Argentine food does not use very many spices for the most part. He brought up an interesting aspect of Argentine past (and, I guess, present) that I was not aware of ahead of time. The majority of Argentina is of white/European decent (Italian being the vast majority) and while there isn't "racisim" in the sense of violence against people of different races, there is widespread discrimination on the bases of class and ethnic background. The migration of Europeans to Argentina caused the indigenous population to be pushed to the fringes of society, and they quickly became viewed as "less" by the much of the new immigrants. Much of the indigenous culture was pushed "out of vogue," one of these things being the use of spices in cooking. Argentine food is bland because spicy food was viewed as something of the peasents, or indigenous culture...not of the Europeans who had recently inhabited the country.

As my professor finished this, I nearly fell out of my seat. I always knew that a culture's food told a lot more than what they like to eat, but somehow this realization resonated really deeply. Just as I was getting ready to condemn the Argentine society-at-large as discriminatory, my professor raised another point.

The meat in Argentina is some, if not the best in the world. Perhaps the lack of spice on the food is a demonstration of the pride that portenos and other residents have in their country's best product. Maybe the people like to enjoy their food pure, rather than covering the natural flavor with other elements.

Food for thought? I definitely think so...