Stop One in Mendoza...and Chilean Cuisine Comments

This is my third visit to Mendoza and the third time I haven't gone to a bodega.

This is unacceptable for a variety of reasons. First of all, Mendoza isn't just wine country, it's MALBEC WINE COUNTRY. For anyone with a set of tastebuds and eyeballs, you'll know that Malbec is lovely and that I prefer drinking this over almost anything else in the world. Furthermore, I've had three chances to get my ass to a vineyard and spend my day lazily tasting wines and gazing out over the grapes. Have I done this? No. Why not? I have no idea. Maybe next time.

This visit to Mendoza has been very pleasing and lovely for other reasons. We're going to be here about a week in total and in this week I have tried more typical Argentine dishes than Chilean dishes in my whole year and a half in Chile.

Seriously.

Some of you may already know my thoughts on Chilean cuisine (see tag: Hey Chile, you could use a little more salt), but this isn't just a personal palatte issue, or even a personal vendetta. It's a fact: Chilean Cuisine is notably sparse.

Typical Chilean dishes are as follows: Completos (Hot dogs piled with avocado, mayonnaise, and tomato in what resembles a veritable condiment boat), Curanto (a big stew of meat, chicken, and seafood), Chorillana (French Fries, fried egg, hot dog, and caramelized onions, all mixed together. Great hangover food. Also great heart attack food), Empanadas (think of an overgrown hot pocket from scratch, with a variety of vegetable/meat/seafood and cheese fillings).

This is Chorillana. No joke, it's the bomb.

Also: seafood in general, because of the access to the sea.

That constitutes la cocina chilena.  And it took me the full year and a half and plenty of interrogation to get the real scoop on Chilean cuisine. It's just…not their strong suit.

But here in Argentina?

I get to Argentina and take a bite of bread and there is a shuddering wave of contentment.  I think to myself, "Yes. This is what BREAD tastes like!" And the butter is tastier. And the asados….don't get me started.

In this one week in Mendoza I've had two traditionally Argentinian homemade dishes.

The first one was pastel de papa (potato pie). Our friends Sergio and Sandra made this dish with Sandra's 1^st-generation Italian immigrant grandmother, and watching the process alone convinced me that this was already my favorite dish without even having tried it.

Pastel de papa...POTATO PIE.

This is my personal portion, right?!

Thin layer of flimsy dough. Slather on a nice layer of mashed potatoes, add a layer of "picadillo", which is essentially ground beef and onions and picante and tomato mixed together. Then a layer of cheese; another layer of mashed potatoes; and then final layer of thin flimsy dough. The dough is pinched shut at the perimeter, coated with a whisked egg glaze, and then it bakes for 30 minutes.

And then you put it in your mouth and the heavens open and angels shriek and things rain from the sky.

The next dish I had the extreme pleasure of trying for the first time this visit was locro de choclo. Hell if I know what this means in English, except that choclo means corn, and this was certainly a corn-based dish.

I was able to witness some of the cooking process and it seemed that corn boiled for three hours and then suddenly onions were cooking and it was ready. I think I missed part of this process.

Whatever you are, I want more of you.

At any rate, what ends up in front of your face at the lunch table is a steaming bowl of (let's say) corn soup, with a nice variety of condiments, a dollop of homemade tomato sauce with caramelized onions, and a couple variety of squash or potatoes mixed in. Two or three cubes of a creamy cheese are added, you wait until it no longer scorches the top layer of skin from inside your mouth, and then you shovel that down your throat.

Sopped up at the end, of course, with homemade Argentinian bread.

*kicks leg in the air* YES!

The first time I came to Argentina, I was able to have a few first-timers then: if we'll recall Jorge's family greeting us with lamb, and then the crowd favorite milanesa, breaded meat fried to perfection. To be fair, milanesa exists in all countries to some degree (except in Chile). In Mexico, my mama used to make this for me almost on the daily, with a nice side of mashed potatoes. In the USA, it's consumed under the name country fried steak, also with mashed potatoes.

I don't know what it is about Chilean food. There are, of course, extremely tasty options available, but mostly in fine ass restaurants with a strong outside influence (as in, the owner studied cooking in France). Desserts in Chile were always pretty disappointing, as well. I don't know what the problem is. Lack of sweet? Lack of salt? Or lack of full-bodied flavor in general in the ingredients?

We can probably boil the debate down to this: when I first got to Chile, it took me approximately one year to come to terms with the fact that the butter sucked.

I'm talking like, the regular supermarket nice brand. Not the cheap crappy supermarket brand.

After a year there, I found the artesenal butter, made in the countryside of Patagonia, and yeah, that butter was great, and distinct.

But there is something lacking in the majority of Chilean food. It has to go back to what the animals are eating, and any Argentinian will regale you for hours about the superior feeding process of their cows and pigs that allow that award-winning reputation to flourish. Chile doesn't have bad meat by any means, but there is something under the surface that is missing, and I can't put my finger on it.

Here is an Argentinian carrying a pile of 

Argentinian meat. The debate rages over which

country does it better.

If it doesn't come from Patagonia/the general south, if it hasn't had exposure to outside influences, or if you don't make it yourself…it's probably going to be bland.

I'm sorry, Chile. I love you, we've had great times.

But you could use a little more damn salt. 

Helped and Hindered

Life in South America has proven to be just like life anywhere else, except that it's in South America instead of North America. And everyone speaks Spanish. And there aren't that many blondes wandering around. And it's hard for me to find a size 9.5 shoe. And the culinary culture isn't that refined. And people aren't really that into spices. And everyone kisses each other on the cheek when they meet, even when they're strangers.

Okay, so life in South America is a bit different than life in North America. (Oh yeah -- tons more stray dogs!) But since I've been able to re-acclimate to life north of the equator, I've noticed a few ways that my life overall has been helped -- and similarly hindered -- by my jaunts down south.

Let's investigate some!

1. My brain learns, but in order to do so, it must forget. And this involves forgetting English. My handle on idioms, cliches and other parts of speech is at an all-time low. This doesn't bode well, as I am beginning a venture to brand myself as a language consultant *cough cough*. Hey -- who knew they were called speedbumps? Roadbumps is just as effective at getting the point across. And my future language consultancy clients will understand this. (syn: road acne)

2. I now have measuring cups for eyeballs. That's right, I see in 3-D AND in 1-tsp increments! Due to the absolute dearth of measuring tools in the kitchen (is it just because of where I've lived and who I've lived with? Or is this an invention that really never made it past the Andes?), I've been forced to eyeball, size up and otherwise scrutinize every recipe I've ever loved including in my eating lifestyle. Thanksgiving 2012 was a prime example, and my forays into Vaguely Healthy Cookie Creation were met with varying results until I finally pinned down the non-specifically-measured ratio a couple months ago.

Well, close enough. 

3. I am a tad more resourceful. Now, I don't want you all thinking that I'd be able to fend for myself in the wild, because I certainly can't, nor can I start a fire, always operate doors or change the gas tank for that damnable space heater in my Chilean living room. However, I CAN think around certain situations where common household items are lacking. For instance, are you making mashed potatoes? Were you scouring your new kitchen for a potato masher, only to find out that not only do you not have a potato masher, you also don't have anything resembling a bowl in which you'd like to mash? No problem! Find one of those drinking glasses with the uneven bottoms and get to work! Serve AND eat the mashed potatoes out of the same pot you cooked it all in, and to top it off, don't use napkins (because nobody buys them) and just use the dish towel. Hey, you might be asking, that's a pretty good idea with the dish towel. Where did that come from? The Argentinians!

4. I speak great Spanish now. Finally. Also, I can understand almost any Spanish you try to throw my way. Thanks, Chileans.

5. I speak hodgepodge Spanish. As in, Mexican-Chilean-Argentinian Spanish. My accent shifts between all three, freely utilizing vocabulary and expressions from three distinct cultures. Someday, this will get me into trouble.

6. I am losing my grasp on normalcy. Some might argue this has been a long time coming, but I assure you, taking the leap has hastened this demise. I suppose 'normalcy' is a term that can be argued until the alpacas come home (what?), but living life this off the grid has certainly shifted (re: completely destroyed) my paradigm. In losing my grasp on normalcy, I am finding more expansive happiness, plentiful creativity and penetrating gratefulness. More things seem possible, life feels limitless, and joy lurks around every corner. This doesn't mean life is some effortless, non-squeaking joint that operates perfectly at every moment. But rather, I've come to appreciate and laud the aches and groans and squeaks and eventual functioning of these joints, because these limbs are carrying me to places -- both physical and emotional -- I've always dreamed of.

7. Questionable metaphors, like the one found in item 6, tend to be more predominant. I don't know why, or how to fix it.

8. I will probably only ever wear black leggings for the rest of my life. No, seriously -- bury me in leggings and a slouchy shirt, because that's all I ever want to wear.

A beach in Huron, OH, complete with sunset, lake,

slouchy shirt and leggings. 

It's up to you, reader, to decide if these items have helped or hindered!

The Food is Bland

The title says it all, folks.

The food here is bland.

Maybe it's the city I'm in. Maybe it's a "Chilean thing". Or maybe I'm just an over-salted, over-spiced American used to an assortment of cuisine from all corners of the globe, whether it's in the aisles of the grocery store or from a variety of worldly restaurants.

But I have purchased far too many sandwiches and soups that left me thinking, "Wow, I could have done that better."

Sandwiches are big here. Every restaurant, every menu features a variety of sandwiches. But they are mostly beef hamburgers or chicken, and not actually a variety at all. The differences tend to range from "Chicken on bread" to "Chicken on bread with avocado" to "Chicken on bread with avocado and tomato".

I'm not kidding.

That doesn't mean I haven't had tasty things here; it's just that it's all dessert items. The brownies are to die for; tres leches cake is plentiful.

But that asparagus soup I had the other night? Yeah, mine is like two thousand times better. I salted the shit out of it, just for a semblance of flavor, and I never "salt things".

I'm not sure what the local cuisine is yet. People eat a lot of meat, and maybe that's just it. Grilling meat is the thing, and I'm not a meat eater. I eat it occasionally, whether out of pursuit of "trying new menu items" or because there's no vegetarian-friendly option.

I was also shocked to learn that tortillas are not common here. The only ones I can find are in the "Mexico" section at the local Wal-Mart-esque store "Lider", and they are flour tortillas and so crappy and not-food-like that I refuse to buy them ever again.

I guess the moral of the story is, I'm not in Mexico or Guatemala, and Central America is Central America and Chile is Chile. There are no corn tortillas here, no gordita stands lining the streets, and try as I might, I just cannot find a spice similar to the picante that I so love in Mexico.

I miss Mexican food. Even Luz commented the other day that what I cook tends to be very "mexicano". Yeah, seriously. I'm going to buy corn flour soon so I can make my own corn tortillas. It's come to that.

Luckily, I cook the majority of what goes in my mouth so I'm not suffering a lack of food or flavor. The local regular menus just leave a little to be desired...

Except the brownies. Those are perfectly fine.