Pizza, pasta, sandwiches, steak, sandwiches, pasta, steak, pizza, pizza, steak, pasta, sandwiches, steak sandwiches, pizza pasta, steak pasta, sandwich pizza, pasta sandwich? Thus eating out in South America – a fat bastard's dream.
But not only eating out. Visit any supermarket and it will dedicate entire aisles to the same crap. One side pasta, one side tomato sauces; one side oil, one salt; big bakery, big butcher. The next time you're feeling glum about being at home, take a walk around a Great British supermarket and say a little prayer to thank the gods of Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons for their vast international variety. (OK, not Morrisons.) You, son, don't realise how good you've got it.
Here in the southern half of South America, for all the excitement, warmth and tremendous character of the people, the seeming lack of interest in what they're eating really is amazing. So long as it's heavy, oily and contains absolutely no vegetables, then 't will serve. (As I type these words, I aware of the crushing irony that a nominal Scotsman, of all people, should be making such complaints.)
 |
| Photo: Wee Mo |
It's not like we've mutated into mung bean munching culinary snobs who wouldn't eat that filth, darling, but unless you are specifically seeking to gain weight or die of coronary complications, then it's pretty hard to stomach the fab four for every single meal. The real problem – with one, glorious exception – is that no one round here really seems to know how to cook them either.
The Bad
Pasta
We've ordered pasta approximately once since arriving in South America two months ago, and have since downed tools in protest. The first problem – that it was a bit shit and inexplicably tasted like fish, even though it was supposed to be chicken – can just about be forgiven, but the second practise seems standard, and is therefore unforgivable.
The rancour is caused so: you sit down in the ubiquitous little restaurant, flick past the pizza, sandwich and steak selections, and – lo! – see that not only do you get to choose the type of pasta, and meat (if you want it), but you then get to mix and match with a choice of sauce. Hooray! It's like Subway, but with pasta! How miraculous!
Except it's fucking not. Because at Subway they don't charge you again for the bloody sauce.
In conclusion, I don't give a rigatoni fuck if the best pasta this side of Rome lies in wait somewhere in South America, I refuse to pay for it. Twice.
 |
| Photo: Wee Mo |
Sandwiches
We are generally unlikely to order sandwiches in restaurants on account of it being much cheaper to make them ourselves. It also helps that, budgetary constraints or not, we have the first fucking clue about how to put a sandwich together.
Pizza
The primary reason pizza became a global phenomenon is its simplicity. A bit of dough > left over pasta sauce > things you have at hand > fire. (For those who may be reading outside of Scotland: at home we have a variation on this. Rather than going to the bother of sticking it in an oven for 20 minutes, we speed things up by taking the pre-prepared morsel straight from the freezer and dumping it in the deep-fat fryer for a few seconds. As it comes out, seeping lava-fresh grease from every one of its crusty pores, some people then opt to fold it and put it in side a bread roll, thereby creating what one ingenious foreigner friend of mine dubbed “an edible glove”.)
Yet, despite this moronic simplicity, isn't it amazing just how many places in the world make such a total roaring, angry arsehole of preparing the simple pizza? In Argentina and Chile, the problems are manifold, but the primary one is American. Somewhere along the line, someone thought the key to a good pizza was suppressing the entire thing under a leaden jacket of cheese.
As we know from glorious, empirical experience, when ordering pizza in Italy, you'll rarely find cheese. And if you do, it's simple, delicious buffalo mozzarella.
Not so here. Instead it's like ordering ice cream and finding it covered in ketchup: fucking stupid.
While on the subject of rank menu items, a few words on maté, South America's idea of a nice cuppa. Maté's popularity varies from country to country (per head of capita, it appeared most addictive in Uruguay), but the method of consumption is the same: a wee cup full of dried, loose yerba leaves, a metal straw with a filter to keep the bits out of your mouth, and a wee flask with which to endlessly top up.
Consumed in staggering amounts by men and women, it's said to be high in caffeine and full of various health-giving bits and bobs. It's also said to be quite bitter.
In fact, it tastes like a couple of ounces of tobacco, briefly stewed in warm, earthy piss, served with two pungent rabbit droppings.
We will not be bringing it home.
The Good
Steak
It's not news, but yes, the steak in Argentina is at least as good as you've heard. Indeed, it's so good, it's hard to really know how to begin explaining its superiority. The key, so I have read, is that the cattle here are lovingly fed grass (rather than corn), don't have growth hormones stuffed down their gluttonous necks, but do have a farmer gently tickle their balls while whispering nightly lullabies into their twitching ears. All of that TLC lasts right through to the plate, too.
It took until we got all the way back to Buenos Aires before we had a chance to genuinely enjoy steak, largely because we had shied away from its price on the menu. By European and American standards, it's laughably cheap; for a couple on £45 a day while the value of the pound is in the sewer, it's still prohibitive.
What no one had told us is that the offerings of fillet in Argentina are the size of a generous sirloin back home, but twice as thick. These things are eating-challenge big, far too much for a single person, unless that person has an overwhelming urge to feel like they are giving birth to a fat calf.
But it's worth feeling like that. Earlier in the trip, in Shanghai, we were treated to quite possibly the most expensive beef either of us will eat in our lives. It was a multi-award winning thing from Australia that, naturally, we weren't paying for. It was said to be the best beef outside of Japan.
Having had both, I can only assume that the judges haven't made it down to Argentina.
Wine
What better to force down those hunks of torn flesh than a fine red wine? Luckily Argentina and Chile are vast producers (the former consumes more than it exports; the latter keeps less than 25% for itself) meaning that cheap wine does not translate as bad wine, and that if you spend a tenner, you can expect to be in for a goddamn treat.
So, if you're willing to work your way through kilos of cow carcass and swill barrels of wine like a demented mediaeval laird, then come on down to South America – you shall not want.
 |
| Photo: Wee Mo |