Marga's Foodblog

All diary

Argentinian diary products are all excellent. They taste quite different from American products, most likely because the cows have a different feed. Some day - I can only hope - they'll start importing these products to the US and they'll take it by storm.

I'm not a milk drinker, so I can't comment on the milk - but butter and cream just taste better.

Mayo

Yep, even mayo tastes better. It might be the eggs (not an egg eater, didn't try them) but most likely it's the oil they use: sunflower seed oil. I'm going to have to check at stores that carry Argentine products if they sell Argentine mayo as well.

French Fries

I don't exactly know why, but Argentine french fries are all yummy. They are usually on the thin side - a little bit fatter than your average McDonald fry - and non-coated. But I think the secret is, once again, the oil on which they are fried. On some cases it may be sunflower seed oil or grapeseed oil, but in others it's just a comercial mixture.

Strawberries

They were in season when we first got there, and OH MY GOD - the little, totally ripe strawberries where unbelievable. It reminded me of why, as a kid, strawberries and cream was my favorite dessert to order at restaurants.

Beef

Need I say more?

Rotisserie Chicken

As a kid I LOVED pollo al spiedo or rotisserie chicken. There was a deli kitty corner to our house and its amazing arom teased me every time I'd go by. But it was a special treat which we could only have once in a while. No wonder, even now a rotisserie chicken costs U$6, pretty much the same as in the US and substantially more than beef. Rotisserie chickens are no longer widely available in Argentina, they've been supplanted by grilled chicken, but we had it a couple of times in Salta. And OH MY GOD, it was soooooooooooo good. Surely the marinades must be a reason, if I could only find those recipes.

Medialunas

Argentina's croissants can be great - but they not always are. At the hands of the right bakery they can be heavenly, though.

Masas Finas

These bite-size pastries often featuring dulce de leche are also a wonderful treat. They are expensive - often costing U$7-11 a kilo (depending of the bakery).

Milhoja

This typical Argentine treat consists of multiple layers of very thin phillo-like dough covered with dulce de leche. Again, it's a matter of which bakery makes it, but at the hands of the right bakery it can be delicious. I had to bring a kilo of milhoja to my sister back from Argentina.

Imperial

This is another typical Argentine tea-time treat. It's a rectangular cake of hard merengue and cream. Yummy.

Alfajores

They deserve a whole entrie of their own. Stay tuned.

Bocaditos bonafide and cabsha

Yummy dulce de leche is covered by a thin layer of chocolate. I'm eating one as I write this. It's heaven.

Dulce de leche

Of course

Ice Cream

Argentine ice cream rocks. It's lighter than American ice cream and with more intense flavors. Apparently this is because it has less air and less cream but I don't really know. And of course, it's made with Argentine milk which makes all the difference. It's relatively expensive for Argentinians - one reason why ice cream was such a treat when I was a kid - with a kilo costing between $5-7 depending where you buy it.

Flavors are also signficantly different from those available here. There is strawberry (choice of water or creme based), chocolate and vanilla, of course, but much better are dulce de leche granizado (dulce de leche with shaved dark chocolate), crema americana, sambayon, tramontana, mantecol and others. We ate ice cream at least once every day and I already miss it!

Paso de los Toros Pomelo Light

This is a diet grapefruit soda manufactured by Pepsico which is actually delicious. The regular version is quite good, but the light version, which is less sweet, is even better. If you like grapefruit soda, you'd go crazy over it. Alas, it's not available in the US. Which is difficult to understand as it's just sooooooooooooooooo good. Please, someone at Pepsi, bring it to the US!

Now, as for things that are not good in Argentina:

Cookies

They suck, they are dry and lack flavor.

Cereal

Just try to find cereal without sugar. I dare you. Try (OK, maybe a health food store, but not at the supermarket).

Variety

In Buenos Aires you can find a number of ethnic restaurants, but forget about having non-Argentinian food (other than Chinese or Spanish) almost anywhere else.

Chocolate

Vastly inferior to American or European chocolate.