What is asado? Pretty much, it is the Argentinian form of grilling, but way more awesome. There is an outdoor brick oven-type stove, where all the meat is cooked. Pretty much, it is just a ton of meat. and when I say a ton, I do mean a ton. The rule is, whenever you think there can't possibly be anymore meat, they bring in another plate!
So, it is typically served as a celebratory dinner (or sometimes lunch), as we have had on holidays, birthdays, and days when volunteers leave (or in some cases return for visits). And it is usually eaten as the typical Sunday dinner in some families. In our house, it is (always) served with potato salad and regular salad (lettuce plus carrots or tomatoes), and bread.
Ok, so types of meat, in the order they come off the grill:
1. ribs and other beef
2. pork and pork sausage (chorizo), and blood sausage (pork + beef, but not the tastiest thing).
3. Sometimes more beef
4. Chicken
They are all delicious (except the blood sausage), and are usually just seasoned with salt and cooked to perfection. At our volunteer social, we also had roasted vegetables, and other types of beef that weren't as good, and overall it wasn't as good as my family's asado.
In general, the food is very good here. For breakfast, we usually just have crackers or small pastries with butter, cheese, dulce de leche (really good caramel spread), ham-flavored cream cheese-type spread, honey, and/or dulce de batata (sweet potato gelatin-like thing that is also really good). They also have a tea or coffee.
Lunch and dinner are pretty much the same, with dinners usually being a little bit bigger. We have had noodles (fideos), breaded and fried chicken/steak (milanesas), other types of chicken and beef, tortas (kind of like a pie with meat and vegetables inside, almost like a pot pie-type thing), pizza (which always has a garnish of a whole green olive on each slice), a lot of rice with cream and cheese (very tasty), soups, stews, sandwiches (here, sandwichs and all the letters are pronounced - sand-witches), etc. I am really lucky in that my host mom, Ana Paula, cooks a lot and from scratch. They go to the grocery store before every meal and have almost nothing in their fridge except for leftovers and breakfast jams/spreads. They use a lot of vegetables, especially onions, and use some peppers, squash, tomatoes, and a lot of hard boiled eggs in the dishes. Additionally, they cook with a lot of salt, and a lot of vegetable oil (they often use it alone as a salad dressing). They also like mayonase a lot, and put it on almost anything. And we have bread with every meal (usually baguette style).
A big difference here is that in general they wake up later than in the US - shops usually open around 9:30, 10 am, so people get up around 9. Then, they eat lunch at about 1 (or sometimes in my house, 2) pm, depending on when they had breakfast. Next comes a snack + mate (pronounced ma-taey, emphasis on the e as in hey) sometime between 4-7 pm, which is usually more bread or possibly cookies or tarta (like sponge cake). Mate is a typical Argentinian drink, and is pretty much herbs, kind of like an herbal tea.
[see a picture here]
You drink it from a communal cup which has the tea strainer built into the straw. Typically, one person prepares the mate and drinks the first cup to make sure it is right. Usually, you put herbs and sometimes sugar, and then add hot water. Then, it is passed around to everyone else, usually in circle, and each person drinks the mate and passes it back to the server, who then adds more herbs/sugar/water and passes it to the next person. It can be drunk anytime, and is common whenever friends get together to chat (kind of like going out for coffee).
Anyway, sometimes there is a siesta after lunch and before the mid-afternoon snack, during which some people sleep or relax. In my small town, businesses are closed from about 1:30/2 until about 5:30/6 during this siesta time - everyone comes home from work for lunch and goes back later until about 9 or 10 pm. Then, after mate/tea/coffee/snack, dinner is usually about 10 pm (sometimes earlier, or in my house, usually later, around 10:30 and sometimes later, usually 11 or later on weekends. Then, people usually stay up till at least 2 am. If you are going out for dinner on the weekend, you might meet up with people for drinks at 10, go to dinner at 11 or 12, and then clubs open after 1:30 or 2 in the morning till about 6 or 7 am. It is not uncommon to get home at 3 am, or if you stay out for clubbing or something, to get home at 7 am, sleep a little bit, go to work, come back and take a siesta, and go back to work. I've had some trouble adjusting to this, since I like my sleep :) Since I work at 8:30, i usually go to bed soon after dinner, at about 11:30 - early! But I also work pretty early.
Anything else about food? They like to drink Pepsi/Coke + wine (red or white). Additionally, they like a lot of pop (soda, for you non-Cleveland-ers), usually Pepsi. What I find funny is that the only thing we have in metric measurements is 2-liters of pop, but here, they come in 2.25 liter bottles! And it tastes slightly different, I can't quite pinpoint it. Furthermore, they drink water with gas, basically carbonated water, quite a bit - you usually have to specify if you want 'regular' water.
Overall, the food has been very good, and I'm definitely eating well! I really like the food and the great cooks and asadors in my family! Can't wait for asado on Sunday with all the volunteers and the whole family :)
Chao y Besos!
No comments:
Post a Comment