Buenos Aires - 7. Empanadas with Yerba Mate

Any city in the World has its food specialties, and Buenos Aires certainly surprised us. After spending a week shopping and eating within this large South American capital, we have found four (4) unusual foods that the locals love: empanadas; mate.de coca; pizza; and vaco.

   Yes, Buenos Aires, and Argentina, in general has always been known for its fine cuts of beef. Peruvians say that when they go out to eat, they always ask if the bistek is ‘Argentinian’ because “everyone knows that Argentinia makes the best steak.” We did have very fine steak in two restaurants while we were visiting the city, but even with each home having its own parilla, or barbeque, it was impossible to find filets in butcher shops or in the supermercados to make on your own. Apparently, there are more and more livestock farmers turning their grazing fields into soy beans because the Chinese export market for soy is so lucrative, and let’s face it: a cow takes quite a few years to fatten up to Argentinian quality. So if you want to sample original, melt-in-your-mouth parilla vaco, then do it quickly. This Buenos Aires food specialty, once found everywhere and still prized, is quickly becoming extinct.

   The same locals who make empanadas also make pizzas, and the two seem to marry well as far as an individual business is concerned.

Every resident suggested a different favourite pizza place, or a favourite empanada maker. “The best pizzeria” was always the source of some heated arguments amongst the locals. We couldn’t tell the difference ourselves, as the fresh empanadas were made right in front of us and slid under the grill. Anything freshly made and warm from the oven is always fabulous. Who doesn’t love freshly made ….well, anything really!

  Pizzas are, without exception, deep dish, and they do not come with all the toppings. They come with: tomatoes, olives, onions, and either ham or sausage. That is a really big order. But anyone with a lactose intolerance beware. If you order pizza in Buenos Aires, it comes with a 

pound of cheese, real cheese. That is why it is deep dish (it has to be to hold all of that melted mozzarella).

   Finally, if you are walking around the city on a weekend, and notice people with hot water thermoses pouring them overtop of a cup full of herbs, then drinking whatever is at the bottom out of a metal straw – that is mate.de coca. Mate is an herbal tea we know as ‘Yerba mate’, and it is so popular in Argentina that even the Pope himself has been photographed drinking it on the subway. People carry their cups and hot water everywhere. Mate is also a very communal drink. Everyone shares the same cup and straw, and the group brings one thermos of hot water for everyone during the day.

It is a bitter tea, a little like a medicinal green tea or raspberry leaf, and shops and markets are filled with all kinds of different cups and straw designs for sale (a lot like our travel coffee mugs in North America).

Of course, if you are at an academic conference in Buenos Aires, just go to the booksellers: there, they offer liquor to you as you browse!

Or, if you have a sweet tooth like the men in my family, one of the many 'petit pastry' shops in Buenos Aires will fill you up for a few pesos. Each bakery is filled with miniature (to us) croissants, cakes, and danishes about a quarter of the size we would normally see them in North America or Europe.