Here we're so used to going to the supermarket, buying all of our groceries in one place, and stocking up for a week or at least a few days. There it's much more common to just buy what you need for the day. Most neighborhoods have little grocery stores scattered throughout them, so you might have to walk only a half a block or a block to purchase what you need for the day. You might go to one store to pick up produce and breads, another to purchase meat, another to pick up pastries, and yet another to get wine or beer. I kind of liked that. It seemed like a less stressful way to do grocery shopping, but obviously that wouldn't work quite as well here where everything is so spread out.
Fruit? Vegetables? Anyone?
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| From Argentina Nov 2008 |
Because of the high number of Italian immigrants in Argentina, yummy Italian food is easy to find. The pastas there are excellent and remind me quite a bit of what I've had here actually. The pizzas tend to use different ingredients like salami or ham instead of pepperoni or sausage, and they're very yummy.
Pizza anyone?
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| From Argentina Nov 2008 |
Another common food there is the empanada. If you're unfamiliar with them, empanadas are a mixture of ground beef (or some other meat), raisins, egg, and spices, wrapped in a pastry dough and either baked or fried. We had baked ones that Diego's aunt made from scratch (see pictures below) and fried ones in restaurants. I have to say that I think the ones his aunt baked were way better than the restaurant ones.
The meat mixture
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| From Argentina Nov 2008 |
Empanadas ready to bake!
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| From Argentina Nov 2008 |
One other observation on the food: I saw hamburgers on the menus quite frequently, but they're not exactly the same as hamburgers here. In Argentina, it seemed quite common to have things like ham and fried egg on a hamburger. Not being much of a fried egg eater, I didn't try it with that, but they were surprisingly good with ham on them.
Egg on burger
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| From Argentina Nov 2008 |
Despite all the yummy, yummy food, decent napkins seemed to be in short supply. Every once in a while we would eat somewhere that had a full sized and absorbent napkin, but more often than not the napkins would be little 3-inch squares or be made out of what looked and felt like tissue paper. Of course, everyone there seemed to get along just fine with these. Maybe I'm just a messier eater than the average Argentine. That's always a possibility.
Up next: The Ocean
1 comment:
I think I made empanadas (mexican style) once years ago with homemade tortilla dough. They were good, but a little greasy as I fried them, and probably didn't have my oil hot enough. My recipe didn't mention baking them. That would be better. :)
I would have a hard time w/o decent-size napkins. :)
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