Finding Pachamama in Argentina
My hands are clasped around a fired clay bowl, still warm, though I’ve finished the soft humita (corn stew) and tender ternera estofada (braised veal) it contained. The air is heavy with the rich scent of heat, and I can identify each spice—cinnamon, cumin, sweet paprika, pepper, salt, chili flakes, thyme—because I measured them into what we’re eating. I inhale deeply, further clearing my sinuses from the late-summer cold the recent drop in temperature brought with it, and look back up at the map of Argentina on the wall.
We’re discussing world economics, charting Argentina’s decline from an economic superpower in the 1920s, when it had a plethora of natural resources it exported to the world (it was called “the world’s barn”) and European immigrants flocked here in the thousands, to now, when it struggles to secure international loans and control inflation. “I see it as a pattern—we’ve always had this culture of fighting within Argentina,” says Franco, our head chef for the day, from his spot at the head of the table. “First Buenos Aires versus the providences, then Peronism versus other political parties, then the military versus the people.” Meri, the only other Argentine at the table, clears her throat, and we turn to her to listen to her perspective.
We are six: our two Argentines, an American (me), an Australian, a Venezuelan, and a Brit. We’re speaking mostly English, with some Spanish mixed in, and we’re running through topics from economics to politics to pop culture. I sit back and imagine that this is exactly what Franco Nesossi had in mind when he opened up his kitchen to travelers and launched Pachamama.
We All Need A Little Pachamama
I’ve long been obsessed with la pachamama. I first came across the term in high school Spanish class; we did a project on the indigenous Andean idea of mothership over the earth and the goddess named for it (Pachamama). I was moved by the idea, found all over the South American continent in half a dozen indigenous languages, that nature wields impressive power and that it is mankind’s responsibility to protect and respect it. It’s a big part of why South America had always percolated in the back of my head as a place whose psyche I’d like to better explore, and why I spent ten months of last year getting to know its terrain and magic. I came to deeply identify with the sense of pachamama and feel vitalized to bring it back into my regular life.
I was excited, then, to spend my Thursday afternoon taking Franco’s Pachamama class, which is four hours of hands-on cooking lessons focused on the rich native bounty of Argentina, showcased with traditional recipes that are made and enjoyed in a group.
Franco came up with the class, which he’s been running for almost three months now, as a corollary to the cooking school he’s been teaching out of his remodeled kitchen for the last year and a half. That class is focused on home cooks who want to step up their skills; it’s a six-week, 18-hour course that goes through basic techniques, meat preparation and cooking, pasta making, poultry dishes from around the world, pastry, and slow-cooking. He just launched a sister course focused on creativity in the kitchen. But both of those options were for people living in Buenos Aires. As a world traveler himself—he’s lived in Mexico and Canada and traveled throughout Europe, Australia, the United States, southeast Asia, and South America—he wanted to connect with other travelers passing through Buenos Aires.
So he started Pachamama with a goal to distill Argentinian traditions and culture into an informative, fun, active class for travelers. We brought our group of creatives and (mostly) expats to his steel-and-wood kitchen right on the Río Plata in Vincente López, just outside of the Capital, to try it out.
I Was 25 When I Learned How to Cut an Onion
The class opens with mate and alfajores; you couldn’t get more traditionally Argentine than the warm, caffeinated shared tea and plate of dulce de leche-stuffed cookies, so we’re off to a good start. Particularly in the quality of the cookies: Franco makes them himself, and unlike the bakeshop varieties, which can be dry or overly sweet, his crumble perfectly, kept fresh under their layer of homemade meringue.
After some small talk, where Franco tells a story not unlike fellow Argentine chef Mica’s about starting off working in a field that made his parents happy (in his case, finance for a multinational corporation) then leaving to pursue culinary school, then catering, then his own cooking school, we get put to work.
Each of us is given a cutting board and a sharp knife. Franco adjusts our grips, showing us the see-sawing back-and-forth motion we need to master in order to efficiently dice the ingredients in front of us. As we cut into the pumpkin, onions, bell peppers, chives, and cheese, Franco continues to improve our technique. We learn to cut off the thin white membrane inside a bell pepper because many people find it hard to digest and how to angle cuts into an onion to dice it faster.
As we come up the curve on Knife Techniques 101, Franco walks us through the recipes we’ll be cooking. We’ve talked about them already—he’s pointed out, on the map of Argentina on the wall, where each comes from—but now we’re digging into their constituent parts.
The onions and peppers Cam and I are responsible for are destined for empanada filling, to be mixed with spices, wine, tallow, a hard-boiled egg, and ground beef to make delicious pockets of rich flavor wrapped in puff pastry dough.
The parmesan and gouda cheese that Meri is crumbling will mixed with orange juice, milk, butter, eggs, and salt to make chipá, or chewy, cheesy little rolls found in Argentina and in neighboring Brazil.
The corn that Aylen’s slicing will head to the food processor with some milk, then be sautéed with onions, pepper, pumpkin, and spices to make the warm, earthy humita that is part stew, part puree, and entirely delicious. Franco’s already made the braised veal that we’ll serve on top of it, because its carrots/onions/veal/tomato/spices mixture needed four hours to cook and become butter-soft.
The flour, milk, and eggs that Gaby is whisking together will make pancake batter, which we’ll then leave in the fridge to solidify a little while we keep cooking.
Our marching orders set, we lean into our responsibilities. We cut, we blend, we mix; we spice, we simmer, we taste. We move from the big table to the stove and back again, sipping our red wine all the while—it’s noon, not too early for a glass, especially if we’re occasionally splashing it into the pans simmering in front of us.
We talk about the influences on Argentine cuisine. Which popular herbs came from Italian and Spanish settlers, how the geography and climate impacts what’s available, when. We link winter produce and the heavy stews made with it to the traditional foods served around July festival days. We dig into the connection between a place, its people, and its food production that creates a specific part of culture.
We feel like a team. Like a family. I start to understand why Franco wanted to call this experience, for travelers who want to get a sense of his world and his culture, Pachamama. I’ve never been so close to Argentine dishes or ingredients. I’ve eaten chipá and empanadas before, but I’ve never rolled the chipá dough into little balls in my own hands, checking to make sure they’re even. I’ve never pressed the air out of an empanada to seal in the flavor before folding its edges over each other gently, like I’m putting a child to bed. It feels like a privilege.
To The Victor, The Spoils
When we are done cutting and cooking and ducking out of the way of hot pans of fresh-baked empanadas, we sit down at the table together. It feels like one of those scenes that deserves the weight of prayer, but being non-believers, we hold our glasses up for a toast. We thank our guide in the kitchen, Franco; we thank each other; we thank the earth’s bounty that has given us the gift of this food. We clink our glasses to Panchamama and we pick up our spoons.