Argentina
Beef, fire and Malbec — the asado is a weekly ritual, and Italian blood runs through the pizza and pasta.
Sunday in Argentina smells of woodsmoke. The asado is less a barbecue than a national ritual: someone tends the parrilla for hours, laying on chorizo and morcilla first, then provoleta — a disc of provolone grilled until it slumps — then the great cuts of beef, all of it eaten slowly with chimichurri and a jug of Malbec. Beef and fire are the country's first language, and few places do them better.
The rest is Italian at heart — the immigrants who poured in a century ago left pizza, pasta and the crumbed milanesa on every menu — plus empanadas baked by the dozen, and dulce de leche folded into alfajores and spooned onto everything. Between meals comes the quiet ritual that binds it all: mate, the bitter herbal infusion passed hand to hand from a shared gourd. End in a Mendoza vineyard under the Andes with a glass of the country's own red.
- Asado (barbecue over a parrilla)
- Empanadas (baked meat pastries)
- Milanesa (breaded cutlet)
- Choripán (grilled chorizo roll)
- Provoleta (grilled provolone)
- Alfajores (dulce de leche cookies)
- Mate (shared herbal infusion)
