Asado

Last night we went for Asado as an Airbnb experience at our host’s house where we were joined by three other Americans. The host makes his own wine, Bonarda, 4 bottles were consumed:) Asado is a traditional Argentine barbecue that involves cooking meat over an open fire. There are some differences, that would seem minor to insignificant to us, but not them, that in Chile they might use coals whereas Argentinians only use wood.

Asado is an event, centered around the sharing of food. The grill is called a parrilla and the cook is called an Asador. The Asador is in control of everything, from starting the fire to cooking. No one outside of the Asador is supposed to do anything involving the food, even so much as saying, hey do you think that steak should be turned over or it’s done. That’s considered to be insulting.

It is exceptionally meat based, our menu started with beef empanadas with sautéed onions and olives. We made our own empanadas, my first one was definitely the ugly duckling of the empanada world but my second one was at least a solid C student.

To say Argentinians are night owls is akin to being in the forest and asking if a bear… Our Asado didn’t start until 8pm and we didn’t even start to build the fire (our Asador asked if anyone would like to start the fire and naturally my pyro wife was first to volunteer) until 9:40pm with the first round of food not being ready to eat until closer to 11pm! All the food, minus the blood sausage, which is essentially a meat pudding), was excellent.

Our host told us a little about Mendoza and that just over 60% of Argentinians have Italian heritage and that’s why there are so many Italian restaurants in Mendoza. Btw, my all time favorite Italian restaurant is an Argentinian one.

After dinner, we had an amazing custard, dulce de leche, whipped cream and crumbled cookies dessert. That was followed by fernet liqueur, which is terribly bitter, mixed with Coca-Cola (70%=Coke to 30% fernet). The only reason the drink was tolerable was because of the Coke.

Our fellow Americans were an interesting lot. There was Aly, she seemed great, hilariously though, she had ChatGPT plan her whole 5 week trip to Argentina 😃 There was Tom who was taking a one year sabbatical off from teaching and who had just attempted to climb Aconcagua, which is the highest peak in South America.

Aconcagua is close to 23,000 feet and unfortunately he got altitude sickness and had to turn around at 22,000 feet. Of the 4 total bottles of wine consumed, Tom accounted for at least two of those bottles, as well as a beer and two of those fernet liqueurs after the meal. Surprising to no one, he later, after the two fernets, poured himself another glass of wine and promptly spilled it all over himself and shattered the glass for good measure. He then excused himself.

Then there was Henri who had just retired at 67 and was on an indefinite trip. He has already visited 101 countries!! Henri asked every question under the sun sometimes to the point of absurdity. Our host spoke of wanting to visit Australia, prompting Henri to ask if the flights go east or west, followed by, does it fly over the Arctic. I definitely think our host should have been ashamed not to know that answer 😂

Our evening ended at 1:30am and congratulated our host for having me out 4 hours past my normal bedtime:) It was a fun night and think we will be going biking with Aly on Monday. Fun funRead more