In the last week or so, I have been on a mission to eat so much of all the foods I like here that I won't miss them. Unfortunately, it hasn't been working, as I keep craving them and the button on my pants won't fasten. But I have eaten tons of gelato, so I'm going to call it a win. This entry needs to have pictures even though they won't convey the deliciousness of the foods I will miss.
Argentine helado: Simply the best food ever. Creamier than American ice cream, eggier than Italian gelato, it pretty much has the best of all possible worlds. There are stores everywhere, like the Starbucks of Buenos Aires except that there are four main chains instead of one: Freddo, Persicco, Volta, and my personal favorite, Munchi's. I need to eat lots of their chocolate amargo and dulce de leche flavors before I leave.
- Empanadas: Empanadas are the Argentine pizza, although they have that, too. But they're way better. If you're too lazy to make dinner, you order empanadas. If you're walking down the street and you get hungry, you grab an empanada. If you're having a party and need appetizers, empanadas. It's harder to get the ratios of crust to filling wrong in an empanada than in a pizza. And they're so perfectly wrapped to go!
Quilmes Stout: The best beer ever. Dark, sweet, and a dollar a liter. Pretty much the trifecta. The national beer (only in the way Budweiser is our national beer — I don't think it's official) is Quilmes Cristal, which tastes remarkably like Natty Light, although it has the benefit of never having seen the inside of a fraternity keg.
- Apples: South America = pineapples and mango, right? Except not at all. Argentines are solidly apples and oranges people, which makes sense if you think about it since Argentina is so far south it's basically north again, climate-wise. And the apples here are consistently really good — firm, crisp, sweet. Sometimes I eat three a day.
- Yogurt-in-a-bag: It's yogurt! It comes in a bag! Enough said. (Although it's maybe even weirder that milk does too. You buy a special bag-holder contraption, put the bag in there, snip off a corner and pour.)
Frutigran: The word in Spanish for both cookies and crackers is galletas. People here don't distinguish between them the same way we do in the United States. A bakery chocolate-chip cookie is a cookie, but an Oreo and a Wheat Thin are both galletas. Frutigran falls into the galleta grey zone — just sweet enough to be what I would call a cookie, but not so sweet that I can't convince myself I'm eating health food.
Of course, there's food in the U.S. that I can't get here that I miss too. I just can't think of it right now. And Daniel just sent me an e-mail saying that he found his personal Argentine food crack, Club Social baked chips, being sold in the States under the Ritz brand name. So maybe if I just wait long enough globalization will take care of my craving for some dulce de leche gelato.
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