More Obsessions
Sunday, April 1st, 2007OK maybe these are more like passions. The Argentinians are passionate to the point of obsessive… there that says it all. My last night in El Calafate I ate at a real asado restaurant. Where’s the beef? Ha… where’s the green vegetables is more like it. How can a country be healthy with so little vegetables a vegetarian might ask. Well my guess is that beef is not so bad for you IF you get plenty of exercise (not the stairmaster and treadmill kind), drink plenty of coffee and mate, and you get plenty of ice cream. So I have the choice of flank steak and strip rib. I was perplexed a little by the strip rib since I did not want ribs so I ordered the flank. Now I understand the two. First, the flank steak is a nice fatty piece of meat. Second, the strip rib is a really thick cut of BEEF. While I was waiting for mine, other tables received these heaping hot plates (coals are under the metal plate so I mean really HOT) of meats. They had obviously ordered the multi-person, multi-meat offering which included lamb and sausages as well as the beef. My salad arrived and it was enough for 2-3 people. I stopped eating it to stay fit enough for the cow. I was happy that the restaurant offered vegetables – a real treat here – and I ordered both kinds – mashed potatoes and pumpkin. Yes, you can find asparagus and other green vegetables, but an asado does not bother with such side plates when the stomach needs room for beef. And then my hot plate arrived with a tiny steak of about 24-32 ounces (I decided to go imperial with this measurement instead of going with metric lest you misunderstand the enormity of the slab placed in front of me). I don’t eat a lot of red meat and an eight ounce steak is usually good for me. I cut into part of the steak while the rest continued to cook on the plate and put a piece of the rich, fatty substance in my mouth. This stuff could fix any vegetarian for good. I drank my wine and ate beef. And then drank more wine and ate more beef. I tried to stop, but the obsession got hold of me. I ate almost all of it. And I am still alive to tell.
vagabondrick