Argentina's Sweet Tooth
Argentina is famous for beef, and it eats a great deal of it, but the flavor the country actually runs on is dulce de leche. It goes on toast at breakfast, into the alfajores that every child carries to school, into the ice cream that Buenos Aires eats more of per person than almost any city on earth, into cakes, crêpes, flan and, late at night, straight from the jar with a spoon. Argentines consume it by the kilo per person per year, and the country has a national day for it. The balancing act, the thing that keeps a nation of caramel eaters from tipping over, is mate: a bitter, grassy, caffeinated infusion drunk from a gourd through a metal straw and passed hand to hand. This is the sweet side of Argentina.
The caramel
Dulce de leche is milk and sugar cooked slowly for hours until the water is gone and the milk proteins have browned into a thick, tan, spreadable cream. It is not caramelized sugar; it is a Maillard product, as our caramel guide explains, which is why it tastes milky and toasty rather than bitter. Argentina and Uruguay both claim it, and the Argentine story dates it to 1829 and a servant of the caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas who left sweetened milk on the fire during a political meeting and came back to a pot of something new. The story is almost certainly folklore; milk cooked with sugar existed across the Spanish and Portuguese world for centuries. What is true is that Argentina made it a national identity in a way nowhere else did, and that the good commercial versions, like San Ignacio's (shop San Ignacio), are still made from milk and sugar and time.
The alfajor
The alfajor is a sandwich of two soft, crumbly cookies with a thick layer of dulce de leche between them, rolled in coconut or dusted with powdered sugar or dipped in chocolate. The name is Arabic, brought to Spain by the Moors and to Argentina by the Spanish, and the cookie changed completely on the way; a Spanish alfajor is a dense almond-and-honey confection, and an Argentine one is all about the filling. The country eats them by the billion. Every region has its own, the cornstarch-based alfajor de maicena of Buenos Aires being the home baker's version, and the industrial brands sold at every kiosk are a national institution and a fierce loyalty test. An alfajor with a cortado at five in the afternoon is the Argentine merienda, the meal between lunch and a dinner that will not begin before nine.
The mate
Mate is the dried leaf of a South American holly, yerba mate, packed into a hollow gourd, wetted with hot water, and sipped through a bombilla, a metal straw with a filter at the end. It is bitter, vegetal and caffeinated, and it is shared: one person, the cebador, prepares the gourd, drinks the first fill, then refills and passes it to the next person, who drinks it all and passes it back, around the circle for as long as the thermos lasts. Saying "thank you" means you are done. Argentines carry a thermos and a gourd to the park, to work, to the beach and on road trips, and the ritual is as much about the passing as the drinking. Beside a plate of alfajores, the bitterness of mate is the reason Argentines can eat as much dulce de leche as they do; it resets the palate the way a sharp bitter drink resets a rich table.
The rest of the sweet table
Helado, Argentine ice cream, is the Italian gelato tradition carried by immigrants and improved with dulce de leche in a dozen variations; Buenos Aires has an heladería on every block. Flan con dulce de leche is the restaurant dessert. Panqueques are thin crêpes rolled around the caramel and sometimes flambéed. Chocotorta is a no-bake cake of chocolate cookies layered with dulce de leche beaten into cream cheese, which every Argentine child has made and which belongs in our guide to dessert without baking. Facturas, the pastries eaten with mate in the morning, come filled with it. And the simplest version of all, dulce de leche on a slice of toast with a pinch of salt, is breakfast in most of the country.
Alfajores at home
The Buenos Aires cornstarch alfajor, which is the tender one. Makes about sixteen.
- 1 cup (130 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups (190 g) cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (115 g) unsalted butter, soft
- 1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
- 1 jar dulce de leche
- Unsweetened shredded coconut, for rolling
- Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt together.
- Beat the butter and sugar until pale, then beat in the yolks, vanilla and zest.
- Add the dry ingredients and mix until a soft dough forms. Wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
- Roll the dough to a quarter inch on a floured surface and cut 2-inch rounds. Bake on parchment at 350°F for 10 to 12 minutes, until set and barely colored; they should stay pale. Cool completely.
- Spread a generous spoon of dulce de leche on the flat side of half the cookies, top with the rest, and press gently until the filling reaches the edge. Roll the edges in coconut.
They keep three days in a tin and are better on the second. At Denver's altitude, reduce the baking powder to three-quarters of a teaspoon and watch the oven at ten minutes; our altitude guide explains why.
The merienda at home
Five o'clock. A plate of alfajores, or toast with dulce de leche and salt. A pot of yerba mate if you have a gourd, or a strong black tea or a cortado if you do not; the bitterness is the point. A square of dark chocolate. Nobody eats dinner before nine. The dulce de leche and the chocolate are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. The cookies take forty minutes and the mate, once you start, takes the rest of your life.
