billsfan, I don't know if you've ever actually been to Italy, but I have spent a bit of time in the middle and north of Italy (from Rome to Ravenna and Venice). I have found maybe three restaurants here that come close to what I found to be very common in at least those parts of Italy.
It's not that the Italians who came here were "fake." But don't you think it's possible that there are other reasons that good food is hard to come by?
I come from Texas, and yes, we do like our food spicy, being so close to Mexico, which country also likes their food spicy. But spicy foods are not the only kind of meals we eat, by a long shot.
One example I can think of, directly related to good pasta (some at least), is that the cheeses used in pasta sauces here are just not good cheeses. I think that may very well be because Sancor (or whichever other company) makes reasonably-priced cheeses, but they are not very good quality, for whatever reason. But to import good cheeses is probably very expensive with the import duties that the Argentine government places on things. Therefore there is not much of a need for Sancor to produce such a great product - not many people can afford to buy imported cheeses, not much gets imported, and that that is imported is probably of a lower quality as well. Sancor doesn't have much to compete against. Just a theory, could be wrong.
I can remember ordering 4-cheese pasta sauces in Rome that I thought were going to take me to heaven right there in the restaurant, they were so good. Creamy, well-mixed, you couldn't tell where one cheese ended and another began. Here, I have had 4-cheese sauces that were blobs of cheeses, practically separated in strands, oily and heavy. I gag on about 4 bites and can't eat any more. I had one a couple of months ago at Filo that was just about as good as some I'd had in Italy. First decent 4-cheese sauce I've had in BA in more than three years. For me, it is that rare to find a good sauce of any kind in Buenos Aires.
The meat that everyone brags about here is good meat - until it's cooked. If one believes that meat cooked to the point of shoe leather, with very little juice at all, is a good meal, then it abounds in BA! Or perhaps the opposite - damned near raw and dripping with blood (actually I like very rare steaks, but I know many who gag at the thought).
I do find much more in the way of decent beef, pork and chicken meals here than things that require a lot of skill and good quality products. But damn, after awhile I get tired of eating parilla.
We grill meat a lot in Texas. You may argue that the smoke flavor we get from cooking with real (smoky) wood (mesquite and hickory mostly, but apple is perfect for a 5-hour smoking of brisket [vacio] for example) is not a good flavor, messes with the meat - and I can understand that, it is a matter of taste - but that same 5 hour slow cooking of brisket makes that meat so juicy and tender when it's done that you can literally cut it with a fork - you shouldn't need a knife for a good brisket.
BTW - I have heard that out in the "exterior" that many Argentines cook using wood and not the leña al carbon that is used here. I have not had a chance to try that, and the issue may actually be a Buenos Aires issue, not an Argentine issue.
I have cooked on a parilla here (i probably cook 2-3 times a week when the weather permits), putting a little seasoning on my meat (not salt!!), for my Argentine friends. I am still not quite used to working with a parilla - a smoker is a much different beast. Even a Weber grill has a much different dynamic than a parilla here. But my friends all rave about my meat and ask me what I did to make it have so much taste. It's not difficult, it just takes more than slapping a piece of meat on the grill and burning it - or taking it off too soon before it burns.
I mention these things because it's not really about spices. It's about cooking. I don't know why, but the way things are cooked, the materials that are used, the equipment that is used (my oven takes a half-hour to get the temperature correct according to the thermometer I bought to hang inside - if I don't get the temperature right, how can I cook something properly? How many people here bother to spend a half hour trying to get their oven to the correct temperature?) all seem to contribute to things being not cooked as well as I am used to in many parts of the world.
Yes, I am from the US, but I have spent the last nearly twenty years traveling to many places throughout the world. There are many things I like about Argentina, but the food is just plain bland for the most part, not well cooked, and not very well prepared, with a few exceptions here and there. I find that most of the rest of the world (not just the USA) cooks better than Argentina.
No one can be good at all things. This is just one thing that, at least Buenos Aires, doesn't do well.
Of course, that is my taste and opinion, and I always wonder at others who come here and talk about how wonderful the food is. To each their own.
