Walking Around: Uruguay II

Punta del Este, Uruguay

little pumpkins

Zapallitos are small pumpkin squashes that grow on the farms of Uruguay and migrate to places like Punta del Este, where residents and visitors can admire them at produce stands and imagine what good things might happen to them in the hands of a superior cook.

These drew my attention when I saw them, because their cousins had played a starring role in our lunch on the previous day. It just so happens that our hosts' own cocinera fantastica sliced off the tops, cleaned out the centers and made a heavenly mix of ground beef and both sweet and savory spices. She crowned each one with slightly-browned melted cheese.

We ate them all and felt much better for having done so, for we liked to see the smile on Susana's face, which foretold of more good things to come our way, if only we could keep up with her remarkable talents.

Neither pumpkins nor other squashes will ever seem the same to me....Please pass the filetto.

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Elizabeth's View

Many travelers feel that they are having a true vacation, a period of genuine renewal, when they momentarily forget all the things that have been ailing their minds, bodies, and souls; however,  I think that the truest test of a real vacation is if you make some effort to conjure up whatever spell nature, love, financial accounting, or a silly boss has cast upon you...and you cannot do it at all, even for a momentito. 

This state is remarkably similar to the one experienced when you wake from a dream, even a very good dream, and, try as you may, you cannot remember what seemed so real just a minute ago.

If you cannot reach this point, you cannot claim to really be on vacation, at least as I define it; you are merely on a trip. You may measure this trip by thousands of miles, if you like, but in a very real sense, you have not gone away.

Susanna's Palette

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I was very far away by every measure while in Uruguay; yet, my senses felt very much at home in what might seem like a contradictory way. Trying to explain this kind of thing only ends in confusion: better to say mucho gracias and take your seat at the table.

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At lunch, Susana always made a freshly baked tartas, or a pie, or both. I think that tarta ajoporro (leek) was my favorite. Or, was it the tomates y cebollas (onion)? Actually, I think that the pastell pollo, made with the large free range chicken we grilled over eucalyptus the night before may have taken gold.

Whatever. This is a contest in which you will always emerge a winner, surrounded by fresh green ensalada, olive oil and lemon or balsamic, fresh mild radishes, and cold beet-root in need of no garnish at all.

Before

Have we mentioned postre, dessert? Perhaps it's best if it remains a secret from my physician, who may never have been to Uruguay, but will see its bounty as soon as he examines me. I don't care. The limon cake with soft meringue-like top was worth any kind of lecture about the hideously evil nature of sugar. Hah!

And I have already spoken of Freddo, local helado emporium. Guide books will translate that word as "ice cream," but do not be fooled by this imprecision. To understand the language of helado Freddo, you must experience it yourself, kilo by sweet kilo.


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After

When we travel, we tend to rely too much on metaphor: "This coast is just like...," or " These trees remind me of..." We like the familiar and like sounding like we're experienced travelers. These are natural reflexes, but it's best to try and avoid them, if you can. It is better to just look at what you see where you are. It is actually much harder to do than it sounds.

But, if you can do this, you increase your ability to be absorbed by a place, experience the fulness of its native qualities, and reach that state of awayness, which will renew and refresh.

You may still turn on your BlackBerry while away, but it will seem much more like an object, rather than your life as you knew it before you arrived where you are.

Uruguay I: Home Of Free-Range, Land Of La Brava

Punta del Este, Uruguay

There is a Spanish word for cloud, nube, but I had to look it up, because nobody in this part of Uruguay, which is a very good part indeed, ever uses the term. Uruguayans, being very straightforward people, have tried to depict their country as it really is on their flag: deep blue sky, bright sun shining, and white for clouds.

I cannot say that I have not not seen a single cloud in Punta, it is just that the slight white wisp of a thing I saw floating by out of the corner of my eye resembled a tiny feather lying on a large blue couch, which is still a feather, but of so little consequence, it is not worth mentioning.

But, why beat around the bush; the weather's great.

All Punta is divided into two sides, as some Roman might have said: La Mansa and La Brava, or the calm and the windy. Such are our lives these days that, of course,  we visited La Brava, where many Argentines tend to congregate. Generally speaking Uruguayans favor La Mansa.

You do not need to know much more than that to begin to understand the main difference between Uruguayans and Argentines ( Note: my dinner companion one night, herself an extremely attractive Argentine, with a beautiful La Brava casa, politely but firmly explained to me, Senor Hayseed, that there is no such thing as an "Argentinian").

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My new friend Miguel is a beef broker, which is an excellent thing to be in Uruguay, because all of the beef here is grass-fed, making the quality extremely high. In fact, those Argentine rib-eyes you picked up recently at home, that genuine Argentine grass-fed filetto you're grilling in the States? Uruguayan, amigos. They may have passed through Argentina on their way to your grill, and even picked up a passing affection for the tango, but Argentina has not sent any beef directly to the US in many years. It all comes from Uruguay.

You don't think so? Try telling my friend Miguel, or, even better, get yourself over to the TI Inglesa store in Punta and see for yourself. I took this photo (above, right) one night there at about 9pm and the place was packed with people aching to get their daily average of about a pound of beef each. 9PM in the grocery store? Well, calling TI a grocery is like calling Gisele a model (Note: Brazilians love Punta too). They sell just about everything, but their food products are packaged as if they were curated and not merely displayed.

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Just in case someone in the TI is not eating their fair share of beef while I am in town visiting my friends, I make up for them at lunch and at dinner. Rump steak? Check. Filetto? Milanessa? Salchichas (Sausages)?Check, check, and check.

Later in the trip, while Driving the 130 or so kms to the aeroporto in Montivideo to return home, I actually let out a moo. Ask my companions.

One of the reasons people eat so much beef, aside from the high quality is that they cook it more often than not on a parillo or iron grate in an asado, an indoor or outdoor wood-burning grill using the shoveled coals from local hardwoods. We cook meat, sausage, and chicken over what are mainly eucalyptus wood sticks. Yes, that is as good as it sounds. Not recommended for people thinking about becoming a vegetarian.

There is, of course, no equivalent to the term "full" meal in Uruguayan Spanish. The concept of a meal which might be anything less or more than full, simply does not exist in this culture, and for very good reasons, which you should go and experience for yourselves very soon.

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Not far from my friends' beautiful home in Punta is the wavy bridge. This is the way to a town called La Barra, but, much more importantly, it is the way to an ice cream shop called Freddo. It is a testament to Freddo's ability to attract communicants that they are willing to cross and double-cross the wavy bridge after lunch and/or dinner in a state that would, as we've already explained, normally be called full.

This is an especially good idea (ice cream, not the bridge) after having spread chimichurri (olive oil garlic, parsley, oregano, etc) on your meat. Banana? Very good. Strawberry? Yes. Mango? Decidedly. Dulce de Leche? A sign in La Barra itself said it all:

                                                                      

Ed Note: Aside from my Punta friends Jim and Jenny, and their wonderful cook Susanna, the best available source for learning about Argentine and Uruguayan cooking with wood is Francis Mallmann. His book, Seven Fires, is not only the best book about this subject, it is among a handful of great cooking books that one might read as one reds a novel or other great work of literature.

http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Fires-Grilling-Argentine-Way/dp/1579653545