Argentina's National Food, JYQ

   Rice and beans?  No.  Not even at the bar that served exactly 10 entrees including rice and beans.  They didn´t actually have item 9.  Spice?  No.  Not unless you meant mayonaise.  Ah mayonaise.  In the grocery store, this was the only sauce and there were infinite varieties of it.  At the movies, this almost official national food was advertised as going well on roasts, cooked chicken, and salad.  Vegetables aren´t popular either and grocery stores mostly carried rotten and very expensive veggies.  But, the true national food was ham and cheese.  Every plane ride served a ham and cheese sandwhich.  Every store had ham and cheese empanadas.  Even vegetarian items were sometimes ham as cheese as I learned when I ordered 3 vegetable empanadas and got two vegetable and one ham and cheese.  On some planes, they serve ham and cheese flavored crackers.  There was no need to even write out ham and cheese.  In fact JYQ (jamon y queso) was often the only indicator of this food.  One national park cafeteria had nothing hot except SEVEN types of ham and cheese...and a HAMburger for good measure. 

   Even though JYQ is wildly popular, beef is the staple in the diet here.  I figure people must think "why eat vegetables when you can have cow?" or at least that is what it feels like.  Beyond sandwiches and beef, Italian cuisine is very popular, although their pizzas, which consist of some partially melted cheese, oregano, and a little catchup-like sauce leave much to be desired.  While this post sounds like a very grumpy beratement of Argentinian food, when we got to that Kosher McDonalds and had a burger, a small piece of heaven descended for a moment.  Yum!

A million types of mayo, the only condiment available.