Nothing brings people together like comfort food.  This fall before I started getting my act together for the wedding, I was able to have a semi-private morning with Teresita – a local woman who teaches traditional Argentine cooking to locals and foreigners in the warm and friendly setting of her kitchen.  One of the specialties of her household is the empanada.  The empanada is like a turnover filled with vegetables or meat wrapped in dough and either fried or baked.  To Argentines, it’s essential food.  A staple in the diet.  Empanadas are present at every party – they’re as common as pizza and sold all over Buenos Aires.

Although the empanada is a regional specialty of Northern Argentina (such as Salta), you can find them sold easily in many forms and varieties in the capital – sometimes even folded in a triangle with lamb or vegetables and middle eastern spices, called the “Empanada Arabe”.  Walk into any pizzeria and you can find a handful of varieties of empanadas, ready to be heated in the giant stone ovens next to the pizzas.  Most Argentines have had the experience of making empanadas at their mother’s side at some point in time – and visiting my friend Florencia’s house the other day, I learned a little bit about filling the little dough pockets with her personal meat mixture.

Honestly, I’m not a big fan of empanadas.  I find that sometimes at the pizzerias, they can be bland and soggy.  I felt like every time I would eat just one, I would feel bloated and heavy.  That was until I went to Salta.  If you have the opportunity to get to the north, the empanadas have a lovely depth of flavor, a little more spicy than from what you would find in the capital, and sometimes even baked in an adobe oven, making the crusts crisp and lovely.  The first night we were there, we ate half a dozen each and could have asked for more.

The morning I went to Teresita’s house, I was skeptical.. it was a gray and cold morning – I thought of how I could have been sitting in my pyjamas writing about any number of things, working on various projects – and instead, I was heading out from the train station in the center of the city – Constitution, on my way to a suburb I had never heard of – Adrogue.  All for a class in making a food that I didn’t even really like outside of Salta.  I arrived a little late, and the other people had already finished chopping the onions… no loss.. so Teresita welcomed me into her kitchen and introduced me to the other members of my class – a Canadian couple, an American couple who also live in Buenos Aires and their house guest.  Teresita put us all to work chopping the ingredients and we all enjoyed the small talk in the lovely, spacious kitchen.  She taught us all about how to prepare the filling as we were to make one batch of beef filled empanadas and one batch of “humita” empanadas, filled with corn.  When that was done, everything went into the refrigerator for a while and she introduced us to some wines that would go well with the dishes we were about to make.

She talked about the different wine regions, and we tasted a few wines of the Torrontes varietal from Cafayate. After we were all well into that first glass of wine we began to measure the flour and other ingredients so that Teresita could teach us how to make the dough. Let me tell you, put a little vino in a couple of Americans and Canadians, and you have dough making machines. We turned them out so fast just so we could enjoy another glass of wine.

So we learned to fill and bake / fry the empanadas and then moved out to Teresita’s courtyard to enjoy the afternoon which had cleared to a slightly crisp and lovely afternoon. We all sat around chatting away, anxiously waiting for the empanadas to get out of the oven. I have to say, when the empanadas came out of the oven and fryer, we started to eat them – and they were probably the best empanadas I had in my whole life. And I’m not just saying that because I made them. They were light – and TASTY!!!! I could have eaten a dozen to myself!

Normally I don’t like going outside of the city – I’m a real city rat. I love my neighborhoods in Buenos Aires – there are people, cars, movement, noise – I love it. Every time I go into the province, I think about how much I miss the cafes, the big city people… but when I went out to Teresita’s house, and got off the train, I felt like I was on vacation. This wasn’t the boring suburbs that I was used to. And at Teresita’s rustic house, she brought together a few people who probably wouldn’t otherwise have crossed paths, we were united with our common interest of learning about Argentine culture through its cuisine with a wonderful teacher who showed us about creole style cooking in her own home.

Honestly, the classes are not expensive for the price – and if you want to know more about her class schedule (she does teach a lot!) feel free to contact her from her website.

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