My parents have a saying, “You’ll never starve in Argentina”. Hopefully, I never have to put that to the test. But with so many supermarkets, meat markets and bakeries, I have no reason to doubt their sage advice. The thing I love the most about Argentine food is the flavor. Everything has such a naturally delicious taste, whether it’s beef, chicken, pork, a banana, apple, grapefruit, cheese, or ice cream.
For the average Argentine household, breakfast consists of tea, Mate, or coffee, and is accompanied with pastries. The most popular is “la media luna”, aka croissant. But the concept of bacon, eggs, and pancakes early in the morning seems to be a difficult concept for Argentines to stomach.
Lunch is usually a heavier meal than in the United States. The only exception to this is if you’re a student or have a really hectic schedule. Then you’ll find yourself sampling fast food restaurants left and right.
Tea time (which they call merienda) is around 5 p.m., and is also accompanied with an assortment of pastries.
Dinner is served anywhere from 8 to 10 p.m., and is usually a lighter meal, though not always, and this varies among provinces too.
By U.S. standards eating dinner so late might seem like an extremely unhealthy thing to do. The average American family tends to eat dinner around 6 p.m., to give us time to digest. But Argentines are in relatively good health throughout their lives and their lifespan is higher than what I'm used to seeing. Most elderly people I've spoken to, including two of my neighbors are in their mid to late 80s, but you'd never know it by looking at them.
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