Cooking up the good life

Many people are surprised to know that the staple food here in Argentina is NOT rice, beans and tortillas. In fact, I have yet to find anyone or any place to buy tortillas of any kind, and although we have passed a few Mexican restaurants-for some reason it seems strange to go out for Mexican food…  Meanwhile, between the mid 1800’s and the early 1900’s over 2 million Italians immigrated to Argentina making Italian the second most common language spoken here. As you can imagine, Mendoza is bursting with Italian culture, not the least of which is it’s food!  Although Argentina has a reputation for being all about meat-and it certainly is abundant here, there is definitely no shortage of pasta and pizza.  We have only begun to explore the abundant varieties and opportunities for these items, but I have already found lots of fresh pasta, and sampled some of the local pizza crusts at home.

I made a simple tomato sauce using onions, garlic, oregano, fresh tomatoes, tomato puree and a shot of honey.  This crust didn’t need much, as you can see there are fresh herbs and  tomatoes baked into the crust already

Along with the crust, I came home with fresh mozzarella, arugula and some Italian Saracen style olives.  I made a simple saute, and topped the pizza with these fresh ingredients.

The pizza was delicious, especially complemented by a nice (local) Malbec.

That said, many of you who know me know that I am not that much of a pizza kind of gal-especially the white flour variety.  I tend to prefer most everything whole foods, and that has been a big challenge so far.  Thankfully, I am also very resourceful, and have found the flour, grains, vegetables and beans that I need to satisfy the whole foods gal in me.  And I have found a few good sources for a decent whole wheat bread-here they call it “pan salvado”. Salvado roughly translates to “saved or salvaged” and refers to the bran of a grain. While it is saved by removing it from the rest of the grain (the endosperm and the germ), in the case of the bread, it has been added back to make the bread “whole” again.  I love this idea, that when a food is whole, it has been saved-saved from the evils of processing and the removal or destruction of all that lovely fibrous goodness.

Cooking is a joy for me, as is exploring new (and familiar) foods in new cultures.  I will continue to seek out the interesting food traditions of this land.  I will also remain passionate about my belief in the importance of whole foods in sustaining our health.  Argentina is right behind the US in rates of obesity.  Maybe it’s time to revisit that meat and white bread centered diet?