On the Road to Find Out

I’m back in Buenos Aires, and as is the custom, I have headed over to Nacho’s for my usual spot on the terrace. The last time I visited Nacho he had made a special dinner of boiled cow’s stomach (mondongo). This time he had gone for something a little different. There was some polenta in the fridge he had cooked 4 days ago, decided it was too salty, added loads of water to it, and then left. It had a strange consistency. He fried it in a pan until the bottom was black, then served it up. It was better than the mondongo. The next day he apologised. I can’t complain though, apart from his culinary skills the guy’s an absolute legend, who has always been more than happy for me to come and use his house as his own whenever in town.

Yesterday we tried to make dulce de leche. It didn’t work out quite right, ended up more like caramel, hence the naming as caramelo de leche. But it’s got a label, made by Los Balconcitos (the little balconies), it’s both worthless and priceless, and is 100% energy. Not bad! Here’s the end product:

That guy really can’t help but close his eyes when the camera flashes.

I was lucky enough while at the farm to take a trip to Mercedes, which ended up being one of my best nights there. We had been out drinking with Romina and Daniel the night before, and they had invited us to go out with them the next night too. We got the bus to Mercedes, and they were at the station waiting for us. First off, they took us to the park, then to the Motocross circuit (kind of interesting so far), then next we went to the shrine of Gauchito Gil.

Gauchito Gil is a legend in Argentina. He’s a bit of a Robin Hood figure. He was a gaucho who had been called into duty for the Argentinean army, and thought in a number of wars for them with a number of neighbouring countries. After these ended, he was called into duty again, but this time it was a civil war. He refused to fight against his own people and retired to the countryside. From here, he would steal cows from the rich farmers and give them to the poor people. Eventually, the police caught up with him and he was sentenced to be hung. They decided to walk him from Giles to Mercedes before hanging him. This way everyone could see what a villain he was on his last walk. However, on the way to Mercedes, Gil told the police chief that his daughter was really sick and would die if they killed him. The chief wouldn’t have any of it, and decided to kill him right there. They hung him on the side of the road. When the chief got home his daughter was in the corner of the room, shaking. He immediately ran back to the hanging pillar and tried to revive Gil but he was dead. His daughter later died. From this point on, Gil was regarded as a legend. If you ever see red scarfs hanging up on the roadside they are most likely for Gil.

Shrine for Gauchito Gil

Better things were to come though. Behind the shrine was a bar, La Pulperia. It was packed inside. On the far side was 3 men. One was singing, the other 2 were playing guitars. We ordered some drinks and sat down. After each song, the line-up would change, someone different would start singing, an extra guitarist would join, a drummer every now again would accompany. They seemed to be playing a mixture of sambas, tangos, merengues, all kinds of different traditional Argentinean music. These guys were really good though, far better than the average busker, and you could see the amount of emotion they were putting into each song, and how much everyone in the bar appreciated it.

Later we found out that La Pulperia is an Argentinean tradition. This particular one is the only one in the province of Buenos Aires, but there are a few others dotted around the country. La Pulpería translates as the grocery. It’s a place where people would go to buy their grocery’s as well as trade corn and cereals. It became a meeting place for the community, and as people would often go their and wait for deliveries and the such like, they would bring a guitar or a drum along and would sing a song while they waited. When the deliveries came in the drivers would join in. They would trade songs. This way songs would travel all around the country, from pulpería to pulpería as everyone learnt each other’s songs. It’s good that people are keeping this tradition alive, and with such gusto too!

La Pulpería, Mercedes

After that, we went for a picada. A platter of dried meats and cheese for all to enjoy. The jamon crudo is pretty damn special! It wrapped up a pretty good day, a real lesson in traditional Argentina.

I have gone on a little about how good Dulce de Leche is, and this is set to continue, especially as I now face time away from the farm, without an endless supply at hand. However it’s times like these where we have to search for solutions. Which is why the last thing I did before I left the farm was get the recipe for making this irresisitible condiment (it manages to taste amazing with everything, I don’t know how it does it! Try it in a cheese sandwich – delicious!) and the great thing is it’s one of the easiest recipes ever. All you need is:

• 2 litres milk
• 500g sugar
• teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

Then all you do is boil up the milk. Strain the milk after or find another way of removing any sediment that might be on the top of the milk. Add the sugar and heat to just before boiling. When it’s almost boiling add the bicarbonate of soda and then turn down the heat so it’s just above a simmer and then keep stirring til all the sugar’s dissolved and it’s nice and thick.

In the cheese room at the farm, Romina would sometimes add vanilla to the mix (added at the same time as sugar) but I prefer the unadulterated taste of Dulce de Leche.

Unfortunately, there are no recipes for fresh milk, but can’t wait to try this receipe with any milk I can find.

Dulce de Leche

This is a great farm to come for anyone interested in the WWOOFing experience or volunteering on a farm. The twist with this farm is that it’s biodynamic. This is a philosophy (based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner) that’s application to farming puts it it on the next level up from organic farming.

In reality, this means treating everything as one organism; us, the cows, the grass, the flowers, we are all part of the same process. The better we treat every part of this process, the better the end product will be. Which, judging by the quality of the cheese and dulce de leche produced in the dairy, is on a pretty high standard indeed.

All of these dairy products are free for volunteers, as well as pasta, rice, beans and oats, and anything that you want from the garden. Ultimately then, summer is the time to stuff your face, but even in winter there are plenty of pumpkins, onions, chilies and herbs knocking around to have some good options.

Work involves a mixture of working in the dairy (learn to make cheese, yoghurt and dulce de leche!), in the orchard (which constantly needs much attention) and tending to the animals. They have cows, horses, sheep and chickens which need to be fed/cleaned/milked (delete as appropriate) each day. This last one was, for me, the most gratifying as after a couple of weeks I was given the responsibility of looking after the cows, which meant getting them fresh grass during dry spells in the weather, milking them, making sure they were grazing in the correct field, and for the little ones, making sure they got rid of their fungus infection!!

If you want to get involved in organic farming as well as really getting stuck into some work this is a great place to come! Days start at 8am and finish at 5pm but there is always plenty of breaks and plenty of different things to do. Plus, the lunch that is cooked for you, as well as the other food available to the volunteers will leave you surely with a few extra pounds by the time you leave.

The biodynamic aspect is also very interesting, especially in regards to seeing everything as a single process. However, delving deeper reveals a world with magic elves that live in caves, and stones with special powers, which can unfortunately put people off a philosophy that ultimately has a really good heart.

More:
WWOOFing organic farm work in Argentina

“Sand?”
“Right here”
“Herbs?”
“Yep”
“Flour?”
“Here somewhere, yeah, got it”
“Juice of cactus?”
“Yep, over there”
“Horse’s tail?”
“Got it”
“Milk?”
“Yep, that too”
“Ash?”
“Also”

This was the conversation between Luis and myself just before we added all of these ingredients into a wheelbarrow full of fresh cow dung I had picked that morning. The next step; to mix it all together. Luis dove in without a moment’s hesitation, I followed a moment or too later, once he had broken the cow pats up a little bit so that they didn’t quite resemble poo anymore. The smell was a little over-whelming at first, but i flung a load of the herb-infusion in there and it started to lose it’s foul odour, and kind of just smell of nothing, which was a relief.

But what was this concoction for? For the trees of course. It was the Day of the Earth and those trees were ready for a little helping hand. We got the others and everyone went round the farm spreading it all over the tree trunks. I’ll have to remember to get the recipe before I leave.

For some reason, Juan decided I was the best person to be in charge of the cows. He was off to plant wheat in some nearby farm all day and needed someone to take care of them. You would have thought he would have chosen someone who actually knew what the hell he was talking about. But no, he chose me.

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The time has come to roll up my sleeves, grab a hoe and get to work, which is exactly what I have been doing. After 3 weeks in Uruguay, I headed to Buenos Aires for the weekend before hitting the farm; Granja Las Ondinas to be exact. This past week has brought with it the best and worst of meat eating.

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After 4 weeks in Buenos Aires my initial writing habit has begun to whither. There are a number of reasons for this:

• the appearance of Paynod & Rach

Okay, there’s just one reason for this, but it’s a good reason. Time has been occupied by parillas, football and and a wide variety of housemates. Most notable impact has to go to this fella:

Choripan

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Just a quick update.

Mario, the portero, asked me if I wanted to go to a gay club with him tonight. At first I thought he was joking, but after asking me 5 or 6 times I had to take him seriously. I feel our relationship could be heading to the next level! I have brushed him off for now though. I told him next week would be better. I hope he doesn’t realise that I’m moving out on Thursday!

I’m currently staying in an apartment in Palermo Hollywood (this is it’s official name but someone had a go at me yesterday for saying it. Apparently it’s a bit pompous. He much prefers Palermo Viejo. Maybe that’s what I should go with) in Buenos Aires.

My roommate is a guy called Alaric. He’s from the US (though if you ask him where he’s from he’ll say New Mexico. I think he’s trying to hide his roots!). He spends all day in bed. Although to be fair I should write; he spends all day in his bed, with his girlfriend. Normally they have the door open so I get to see into their world. He works away on his laptop while she lies there. Sometime they close the door. I can only imagine what they get up to then. Scrabble maybe. It’s normally followed by a shower so they must be pretty heated games.

The best thing about living in an apartment here though is the portero, which is basically a janitor. It’s taken me a while to get used to kissing him every time I see him, but other than that this guy is an absolute gem. Every question I have he has an answer. He knows everything. And he fixes everything double quick. Only two days ago did we have a leaky tap. Problem was solved in about 10 minutes. He does keep insisting I need to strengthen up though, mainly through buying polenta. I think maybe he’s on the polenta marketing board or something.

It’s impossible to ignore the portero’s advice though and so I have bought polenta. No immediate effect yet but I am hopeful.

(Oh yeah, and days of grapes and honey. This is the Spanish version of Days of Milk and Honey. I think maybe they’re forgetting the versatility of milk. Although thinking about this you can make wine out of grapes. You can’t make alcohol out of milk and it does go a bit funny after a few days (unless you have a magical Ecoworks fridge) so I might have to rethink this. Umm…)