A Serious Thread About Food In Argentina

[Girino]

Thanks, I sometimes read http://www.recetaspop.com.ar/ but I cannot understand very well the processes due to my limited Spanish and lack of step by step pictures /videos.

About tamale, I had it at El Ñandú in San Isidro bajo, but I cannot say if they were good or not since it was a first.

 

[Ries]

there are several restaurants I have seen that make tamales.
Funny, because being from the US, I think of tamales as mexican.
Mexican tamales often have chicken, or pork, sometimes vegetarian.
They are pretty similar to the tamales from the northwest of Argentina, though, even though I have never seen any other dishes that the two regions have in common.

 

[Davidglen77]

Today's lunch - Mexican Restaurant on Franklin Ave & Eastern Parkway, near Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Grilled Shrimp Fajitas
They brought me a sizzling metal dish of 12 large shrimp, sauteed with red and green peppers, onions and cilantro
A plate with 4 flour fajitas to stuff
A plate with huge dollops of guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream, 2 kinds of shredded cheese, dish of ají green sauce, dish of yellow rice, dish of refried beans.
Basket of blue corn chips and chunky salsa
Bottle of San Pellegrino water
$12.50

 

[Girino]

Now I know where to head to put to use my AA miles! ;D

 

[ariel81]

200 years is plenty time to get your food act together and I think you mean de-colonised just recently, surely?
Or, better put, gained their independence?
I've got no idea why the food here is so effing bland, which is why I'm so looking forward to a curry in Bradford, Yorkshire next month.
The sort of curry that brings tears to your eyes is what I mean.

spicy garbage such as indian so called food is used to hide the awful garbage that you are eating.
Plenty of bad awful things here,food is not one of them.

 

[ariel81]

Apparently the food in Brazil is even worse, at least according to some Argentines who have recently returned from holiday there and they're talking from the horse's mouth.
I'll be a happy man if I don't see another poxy milanesa, ever.

never go to vienna,then,please.

 

[scotttswan]

spicy garbage such as indian so called food is used to hide the awful garbage that you are eating.
Plenty of bad awful things here,food is not one of them.

lol, you have no taste in food.

 

[ariel81]

I think poverty and lack of know-how or recognition of good quality has a lot to do with it.

The other part is fickleness and capriciousness that runs rampant in this society. Taste over health. Ease over work. Cheap over expensive. Why spend good money on a beautiful piece of fish that tastes rather bland, when you can spend a lot less on something that goes down a lot easier?

I for one don't mind simple dishes - too many foods in other places gets overtaken by spices, sauces, and strong flavor ingredients that mask the quality of the underlying meat. But a little effort is appreciated. The differences between Spain and here is astounding... I keep being told that the restaurants and cuisine here have Spanish influence (and it does in the most superficial ways) but there's really no comparison. In Spain you can buy excellent fish in even the smallest towns way up in the mountains away from the sea. Here in Buenos Aires, living right next to the sea, you have to really search. In my area, there isn't one pescaderia that I know of, and even if there was, I wouldn't trust it. The Spanish also have a sort of obsession with food quality and health - at least my mother always did. Having grown up on a farm, maybe they didn't have money to buy clothes or other things, but they ate well. Lots of fruit, vegetables, salad, potajes (garbanzos, lentejas, etc.) all your typical healthy peasant dishes. Here peasants didn't really develop in the same way with land and farming. Yea, you had some, especially in the interior -- but poor people were more poor and Buenos Aires doesn't seem to have the same culture.

I don't want to speak too badly of society here because Argentina (and Argentines) has a lot of redeeming qualities... but I think this blindness to quality has a lot to do with the immaturity of the people. Look at the politicians and who gets in power... the most recognized stars (Mirtha Legrand for example... would she be seen the same way elsewhere?)... the obsession over a sport as the most important thing... it's rather adolescent. Argentina is a young country, but not that much younger than the US (obviously with very different beginnings and history.) The people here have been stunted in growth by all the awful governments and poverty that has plagued them.

hahah,to get political lessons fron an italian...remember berlusconi...

 

[ariel81]

lol, you have no taste in food.

I have,I value the taste of FOOD not from spices.

 

[scotttswan]

I have,I value the taste of FOOD not from spices.

lol if you don't put spices and herbs in your food when cooking.