A Serious Thread About Food In Argentina

I remember my ex had never eaten a vegetable until I moved in with my wok and started stir-frying all kinds of vegetable with pineapple and honey dishes, cashews, chicken and mango and curry dishes. He was resistant at first because he was used to milanesa, pattys, empanadas, etc. Now he loves it, but he's too lazy to cook or doesn't have the time. I think time constraint is a major factor. It's easier to heat up in the microwave foods that we're already familiar with. When I was a kid, my mother refused to fry her milanesa to convince me eat and if I didn't want her estofado I could go to bed without dinner. However, she used to mix vegetables with ice cream in the blender or I wouldn't eat my veggies. Lo and behold, now I love vegetables and hate ice cream. Most people don't have time to buy, clean and chop vegetables up to prepare and if you buy already prepared frozen ones in the supermarket here they cost around $60 pesos.. They're outrageously expensive.
 
Being back in the US (and I know New York City) is somewhat of an exception when it comes to food. I can't begin to express how happy I am about the food and how accessible it is. Every store sells items that are very affordable to everyone (I am living in middle class Queens, NY) that would be luxury items in Argentina.

In my very middle class neighborhood of Woodside, Queens, I can have a life of luxury (food, safety, tranquility) that makes Puerto Madero seems like a ghetto. Not every place in the US is like Queens, I reckon.
 
In my very middle class neighborhood of Woodside, Queens, I can have a life of luxury (food, safety, tranquility) that makes Puerto Madero seems like a ghetto. Not every place in the US is like Queens, I reckon.

How funny, I am in Rego Park. One of my best friends for over 30 years lives on 64th St in Woodside. I was just there at a Colombian restaurant 2 weeks ago. It's great eating in this part of Queens. I would say Puerto Madero is probably nicer looking than these parts of Queens (except for Forest Hills and Forest Hills Gardens), however the quality of life in any neighborhood of Queens, in terms of safety / security, availability of goods, employment, ability to save, healthcare, etc can't be matched anywhere in Argentina. Also, I went to Social Security to ask about healthcare, and I was able to sign up for health coverage, as a single adult for only $200 dollars per month!! Years ago this same coverage would have been more like $2000 dollars. This is all because of Obamacare. I know people here will bash him, however this has worked out great for me.
 
So- its unfair to use your personal version of Italian culture as a yardstick for all other foods.

Sorry, but I was really talking about healthy food (or food combination) not about taste. We have unhealthy food in Italy, as well, and they are the yummiest thing on earth, if you ask me. But they are perceived as such - unhealthy. They are allowed once in a while, but people know that they shouldn't eat them every day.
The famous melanzane alla parmigiana are layers of fried eggplants with mozzarella and tomato, then baked in the oven. But if you search for the recipe on the Internet, you will find many variants that try to make the dish lighter/healthier (for example, by grilling eggplant instead of frying it).

It may be that in Italy we are more healthy-conscious than in Argentina by history, but I notice that here the simple things are more expensive than processed food, and it is something that I can't really understand, except that it is a consequence of globalization.

Another thing I was mentioning are vegetables. I don't understand how it is possible that meat is cheaper than fruit, in Argentina. I easily spend many Evita bills at my veggie shop, and sometimes I think I could make 3 asados with that kind of money.
To cultivate fruit and veggies you just need the soil, irrigation and seeds. To raise a heard you need to buy the calves, make a pen, treat them if they are sick, kill them, cut them with high hygienic standards and then transport them through a refrigerated mean of transport, and within a short time. Just the costs are higher, the timing is worse... how is it possible that as a result meat is cheaper?!

Some members have mentioned that also in North America there is a similar tendency, and that the Americas share a common denominator in that regard. I agree with those observations, although I have only been in the US and here. However in the US there are many dishes who were really influenced by European immigrants, for example the New England clam chowder, and you could truly map them across the US.
Here it sounds more like a food desert, despite the many European immigrants that arrived here in the last two centuries.

There should be a reason to why the US and Argentina, both former colonies, young countries and with a lot of immigrants, have evolved in a such diverse fashion with regard to food. It looks like in the US they have maintained their food diversity by adding dishes as a consequence of immigration, whereas in Argentina they have shrunk food to a handful of plates liked by all. Which are not healthy, and my point is that they became so popular because they are yummy (=unhealthy). With "yummy" I mean that we are genetically predisposed to like more protein-rich foods from our past lives which involved a high manual labour, and with "unhealthy" I mean that they add too many calories to our diet than those required by our modern and sedentary lifestyle.


One day I caught a glimpse of a TV advertising showing veggies dancing and singing to promote vegetable consumptions because they are rich of vitamins. It was a school day and it was 10 AM, so it was not for children. Using these simple ads on public television to teach adult people that "carrots contain vitamin A" and "carrots are good" and "eat carrot!" in 2014 looked very odd to me.
(I don't have a TV, so I don't know how common this kind of advertising is. I saw also one about wearing a helmet with robots running around!)

I don't think it is a matter of culture or "richness" - think about India or Africa, where they eat mainly vegetables.

It seems to me that there is a basic understanding among humanity about what food is good and what food is bad for you health, and I believe this came by simple observation of how long and hard it is to digest them. There is no Western Science talking here, just a mere common sense.

Vegetables are good, but in the US they sell three veggies fries as if they were healthy vegetables. They are just french fries with added tomato or spinach as a colorant! Do they really believe they are eating healthy veggies that way? Or is it a case of make-pretend?
I think about the lawsuit filed by a mother in the US against Nutella because on their package it said it was part of a nutritious breakfast for you children, and she found out that *indeed* nutella was very unhealthy.
Isn't there a school education program about this?

And furthermore... is really there a "national" interest to push toward a healthy nutrition when the government is also allowing great multinational to destroy the local habitat to cultivate huge crops of a limited kind of vegetables?
 
I mean people are always sitting around drinking mate and taking 5 hour siestas...or cooking a hunk of meat for two hours...so I don't think time is the constraint....people view food here as food(except asados which are more of a sacrament)...not as entertainment as in the USA...I just don't think people here are used to eating or desire complicated dishes. The opposition to seasoning is the hardest thing to overcome for me...
Being creative is putting the same ingredients together in a different way...but when you have like 40 ingredients...it gets boring...
 
I would say Puerto Madero is probably nicer looking than these parts of Queens (except for Forest Hills and Forest Hills Gardens), however the quality of life in any neighborhood of Queens, in terms of safety / security, availability of goods, employment, ability to save, healthcare, etc can't be matched anywhere in Argentina.

I think my area look as good as Forest Hills Gardens and blows Puerto Madero out of the water. That was my biggest lesson in Buenos Aires: That a middle class guy in Queens, NY can live much better than a very wealthy guy in Buenos Aires. I used to think that if you had money, anywhere in the world was great. Living in Buenos Aires thought me that is not true. I lived in some nice ares in BA, like Puerto Madeiro and in Palermo (Bulnes y Libertador), and none of these places can hold a candle to humble Queens in terms of safety, convenience, tranquility (noise) and food. I also think that my area looks a lot better too.

Since you are in Queen right now, if you want to eat some cheap and delicious Peruvian chicken, I can't recommend this place enough. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Do us both a favor. Go there whenever you can and buy their delicious chicken. You will not regret it.
 
personally, when I make it, I fry the eggplant.

Its funny- I find many fruits and vegetables are cheaper in Argentina than in the USA.

My wife buys lovely and delicious melons at the fruiteria around the corner for about 1/4 the cost we pay here in the US.
Many other fruits and veggies are much cheaper in my barrio than up in el norte.

Some, of course, are more in Argentina.
And some things that are very common in the USA are impossible to find in Argentina.

But I have had no problem buying in season of course, many very fresh and high quality fruits and veggies for reasonable prices.
I also get great organic brown eggs, organic chicken, and of course fresh pasta, for a tiny fraction of what I pay in the USA.
I have a very good egg/chicken market a few blocks away in barrio norte, the quality is great, and the prices are low.

As I said before- times are changing in Argentina, and better quality ingredients are far more available than five years ago.
The range of restaurants has changed a lot as well.

Home cooking will change, slowly.
 
Funny, no one has mentioned the general Latin American love for sugar. I was at the market a couple of days ago, and saw a family with an entire basket full of 2 liter soft drinks - like 30 or 40 bottles. I had to wonder...how many in the family, and for how many days would that suffice?
 
Funny, no one has mentioned the general Latin American love for sugar. I was at the market a couple of days ago, and saw a family with an entire basket full of 2 liter soft drinks - like 30 or 40 bottles. I had to wonder...how many in the family, and for how many days would that suffice?

I think it is a recent phenomena. Growing up in Brazil, sodas were sold on 1 liter bottles and we would have, on average, a single bottle at about one weekend per month. The 1 liter bottle was expect to last Saturday and Sunday (family of 4). And most households in my street had similar consumption levels. This boom in sugar consumption and obesity is recent. I'd say it is from the last 15 years or so.
 
I have a very good egg/chicken market a few blocks away in barrio norte, the quality is great, and the prices are low.

Do you mean Belgrano market? Here in San Isidro there is no market, but it is plenty of small shops. The problem is that they all carry the same stuff, and the selection is somewhat limited.
I went to an organic shop here in San Isidro where flour was ARS18/kg, whereas in supermarket it cost half than that. Unfortunately it didn't perform better than the one in the supermarket.

I believe that in Capital there is a wider choice of ingredients, for example in Belgrano (barrio chino) they had watermelon and artichokes 2-3 weeks before than they hit the stores in San Isidro. And in Capital there are specialty stores which sell high quality stuff. My main nuisance is that the basic ingredients I use for cooking are of a very poor quality here.

For example, I love cakes which are filled with ricotta mixed with raisins, sugar, and egg yolk, but the ricotta sold for cooking (the one in the plastic bag for the torta pasqualina) is tasteless, very coarse and dry, whereas for pastry one should use a creamy ricotta, more of the kind sold in the plastic cup (way more expensive).
To make a cake with the right kind of ricotta, it takes 500 g to 1000 kg depending on the recipe, thus I would have to spend like around 70 ARS (for 3 plastic cups of 300 g each), or I should do it at home (1 kg of milk leads to 250 g of ricotta, so 3*10ARS = 30 ARS).

I cannot take two days to make a cake because I have to make my own ricotta... And when there are decent pastry cakes for ARS 300 already done and with no baking required. Of course, they are not the ones I want to prepare. ;)
Also, chocolate choice is very limited. Even Aguila is very rich in sugar, bitter chocolate is a rarity. At the supermercado I can find only Nestlé amargo and at Jumbo Bonafide (ARS180/kg).
To make a chocolate cake with 400 g of chocolate I would have to spend around 80 ARS for chocolate alone.


That's to say that what used to be "cheap and tasty" recipes at home, here are expensive to prepare routinely and if I had to rely only upon the cheapest ingredient of quality here, I would eat apple cake all the time.
 
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