Where's the beef? In Argentina!!!

Between my Rotary hosts, my adopted mendocinan family, my karate team, and university friends, I have had many opportunities to dive into the Argentine/Mendocina culture as well as give them a taste of mine.

All across the country, Argentinians love their asado (which literally means slow roast over a wood-fired BBQ) and I got to feast on this sumptuous carnage so many times that I am now carrying several pounds of it in my thighs! This is a very popular thing to do on Sunday afternoons, not unlike our northamerican Sunday BBQ tradition. But their version includes a lot more, and a lot better, beef.
Tipically they roast long, thick cuts of beef slowly over the wood coals for a long time and then at the end throw on a few sausages (chorizo) and maybe some other cuts of pork and even blood sauces (morcilla).

Acompanying the meat is a very basic salad of lettuce and tomato with olive oil and vinagre. Although they are amazing with their meats, Argentina is lagging behind when it comes to salad, which hardly ever has more than 2 vegetables included and they don't even have a word for salad dressing as they only ever use oil and vinagre. They have never even heard of "ranch" or "honey mustard" or "thousand island". So when I brought a favorite salad of mine to an asado, made of lettuce, tomatoes, onion, and pears in a balsamic honey mustard dressing, they went wild and from then on ever time I was invited to a dinner, I was asked to bring my exotic "Hawaiian Salad". Besides salad, they also normally have french bread and lots of desserts......AND lots of delicious Malbec.....

A Toast! To That Mouthwatering Mendoza Malbec!

Mendoza is famous for its excellent Malbec wine. The Malbec variety of grape is actually originally from the southwest of France, but it was only until it was introduced to the Argentinian winemakers that it came into its own. The climate for this grape is ideal in Mendoza, with its dry soil, more than 300 days of sun per year, and wide thermal amplitude (difference between daily temperatures) and even though it is not native to Argentina, the Argentine malbecs are known to be the best in the world. It is a red wine, normally aged in huge oak barrels for 6-18 months, with lots of structure and body, yet fruity and flavorful at the same time. (I learned how to identify and properly taste wines during the many wine tours I did every time I had a visitor) After a year of living in this place where the wine is cheaper and better than the water...I have definitely become a big fan. And...I don't know how I got so lucky, but the host family stork happened to drop me into a famila mendocina that has their own winery and orchards of peaches, apricots, cherries, plums and of course grapes in a beautiful pueblito about 2 hours south of the city at the foot of the Andes. Thus, my husband and I have had many wonderful weekends out at the finca relaxing in front of the incredible view, tasting excellent home-made wine, and even helping out with the harvest!

Coffee or Maté?

Besides Malbec, the other national drink is maté. This is an herbal tea, made from the leaves and stems of a large bush called Yerba Maté (literally “maté herb”), and grown at a large scale in Argentina’s Missiones province. It is a digestive tea and has a similar chemical to caffeine, which enhances one’s energy. The loose leaves are typically poured into a maté gourd, made out of wood or a dried squash, up to an inch below the brim. Hot water is then poured in and drank from a bombilla (straw) with a filter on the end so as not to get the leaves in your mouth.

Drinking maté is always a social affair and the cebador (the person who prepares the maté) always takes the first and most bitter drink, sipping it until there is no more water left, then refills it for the next person to drink until the gourd is dry again. And the gourd is passed to each person in the group, who in turn sips on it for a couple minutes, drinking the entire thing, when it is refilled for the next person.

Drinking maté is most popular when out and about in the countryside, whether it be going for a drive into the mountains, hiking, or horseback riding, as an excuse to stop and rest, enjoying the scenery every so often. However, some people never go out without their maté set, always including a thermos of hot water, the gourd, bombilla, and a Tupperware of herb and/or sugar. They even make fancy leather bags specially designed to carry the maté set, but most locals just use an old paper gift bag.

The flavor is a bit grassy or earthy, and thus reminds me a bit of the Hawaiian Kava root drink, except that the 2 have totally opposite effects. It takes some getting used to, and although I didn’t turn into one of those people with their maté kit attached to the hip, I do enjoy a maté once in a while and have a kit, including the herb, gourd and bombilla, at home.

Living Aloha

Not only has it been fun and delicious participating in Argentine culture, but it has also been a real kick to introduce these Latinos to the unique traditions we have at home. Being from the U.S. state of Hawaii, I have had the pleasure to grow up with not only all the traditions that we share across the country as Americans, but also the myriad of “exotic (and extremely crowd-pleasing) traditions of the islands.

HAWAIIAN HULA GIRL
Everywhere I go, people have the same reaction when I tell them where I’m from. “Hawaii??? (Big sigh) Ohhh wow. It’s my dream to go there! Why would you leave that tropical paradise and come to our desert?” And I respond, “Because I wanted to experience something totally new and different.” “Well in that case,” they propose, “let’s do an exchange!” They then begin barraging me with questions, first about the weather (“summer all year, right”), then the temperature of the sea, what do we eat in there, what kinds of people live in Hawaii, and why don’t I have dark skin and dark hair like the Polynesians they see in the movies, and suddenly they remember seeing the Hula in one of these movies and they excitedly ask me if I can dance the “ula ula”, as they call it, accompanying the question with the typical hand movements famous around the world.
Luckily, for my wedding, I finally learned a real hula (apart from the Hukilau that everyone learns in grade school) the year before I arrived in Argentina. Thus, I don’t have to let their many requests to see a dance go unsatisfied. In fact, my hula performances at Rotary events were such a big hit that word spread around and I was even asked to dance as the entertainment at an elegant garden birthday party for one of the club’s presidents!

One night I held a “Hawaiian Night” at my house for my host family and neighbors. That night, my host mom and sister brought over three ‘Hawaiian skirts’ they had made out of tissue paper and I taught them my hula! My husband and I also made Hawaiian Lava Flows to drink, Japanese sushi, Okinawan sweet potato dumplings, and Hawaiian fish lu’au (thank goodness for the Ethnic Foods of Hawaii cookbook I brought!) that we ate amidst the music of Ho’okena, Izrael Kamakawiwaole, Keali’i Raichel, the Makaha Sons of Niihau, and Hapa. It was so much fun for everybody and I think will remin in all our memories as a truly special night.