A carnivorous time in Argentina

In Buenos Aires, PETER CLADER steps in salivating where
vegetarians fear to tread.

Vegetarians may find it hard to stomach but Argentina is a carnivore's idea of heaven. Buenos Aires' fortunes were founded on beef, and the diet of its nine million people reflects the country's history as the Southern Hemisphere's great cattle ranch.

The Argentine capital started as a sleazy port where the spoils of Spanish silver mines in Potosi, in present-day Bolivia, were loaded for the New World. But as the livestock abandoned by the first Spaniards on the lush pampas bred and spread, Buenos Aires became the city that elevated the barbecue to an art form.

A young Charles Darwin, venturing inland when the Beagle called, was astonished at how "the gaucho in the pampas, for months together, touches nothing but beef." But the great naturalist's experience of Argentine carnivorousness was positively mild compared to that of the modern visitor. He arrived before the time when the arid, windswept tussock uplands of Patagonia were fenced off by sheep farmers, many of them of English ancestry. These days, beef is only part of a serious meat-eater's diet.

The everyday tourist is unlikely to eat in the style of the true gaucho, who squats on his haunches under the endless Patagonian sky as a roaring fire roasts the cordero asado.

This delicacy - at this point vegetarians (and even carnivores who think of meat as something shrink-wrapped in a supermarket fridge) should avert their gaze - consists of an entire sheep, ripped from stem to stern and spatchcocked on an iron cross which is driven into the ashen turf at the edge of the open fire. The image, reminiscent of some grisly medieval torture, is an ever-present part of the imagery of Argentine cuisine.

And it's not just on the pampas but in the show windows of fancy eateries on upmarket Buenos Aires avenidas like Florida and Lavalle. In the parilla (the roasting kitchen) at La Estancia - the word, which means ranch, is surely the republic's most popular restaurant name - Oscar Ledesma freely admits he's not a gaucho even though he's dressed like one.

"The tourists love it," he beams, the blade of his 30cm knife a blur as he goes about his bloody work on a butcher's block the size of an armchair.

Gaucho or not, Ledesma loves his work. Barely breaking a sweat as flames lick and meat spits all around him, he hacks and carves to waiters' orders and reels off a list of fancy European restaurants where he's led Argentine delegations on special expo weeks.

"It must be a tough life for a vegetarian in this city," I offer.

The gaucho chef tips his hat back and shakes his head, staring into the flames and wondering at the bad luck of being born a vegetarian in Buenos Aires. "Tough," he says at last, with a long sigh. "Very tough."

Beyond the glass cage in which Oscar Ledesma practises his craft - and advertises the specialty of the establishment - the waiters hover, in starched white coats and ties of deep blood-red. They eat late in Argentina. At 8.30 pm only a scattered few tables are occupied, but I study the bill of fare, which details the cuts of meat over a densely printed page.

Many of the local terms are alien to my small Spanish dictionary. But the waiters are only too happy to help, unselfconsciously offering themselves as models to demonstrate the part of the animal.

"It's here," says one, stooping, running a hand tenderly across his own flank to sketch the shape of a cut and salivating at the prospect. "Glands," says another, miming the act of burying his hands in his neck and extracting, with a twist and flourish, a pulsing thymus gland. A third pays out the endless length of an imaginary intestine.

Bewildered by choice, I suggest they select for me, a task they quickly turn into an animated argument.

The sizzling iron tray that arrives a few minutes later is piled high with meat, enough spare parts, it seems, for a whole animal. Cordero, a thickly marbled lamb rib the size of my forearm; molleja, the fragrant sweetbread from the neck; chinchulines, bite-size morsels of veal intestine, the elastic skin charred crisp, the dense innards almost melting; chorizo, the familiar spicy Spanish sausage, thick as a baby's forearm; morcilla, a blood sausage as sweet and rich as chocolate cake; and vacio, a slab of sirloin which, at home, might alone have seemed excessive.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the vegetables are prepared with less flair. Anything beyond a simple tossed salad is hard to come by and can cost as much as meat for the whole First XV.

They'll give you mustard if you like (the sweet American version proliferates; the sharp English variety is virtually unknown) but the local condiment, chimichurri, a piquant marinade, laden with chilli, seems more apt.

And there's no shortage of red wine to wash it all down. The pride of the continent when I first tasted them in the early 70s, Argentine wines pale beside ours these days - they're either watery or treacly and the best are dear. But a carafe of the house drop is as cheap as a cup of coffee and its rude profusion seems to suit the cuisine.

I push the plate away and the red-and-white waiter swoops, wondering if I want some more. There seems a hint of triumph in his eye when I decline. He knows I took on the parilla; he knows the parilla won.

At 10, I am back on the street. Among the first to arrive, I am the first to leave. The restaurant is full. Dinner is served.

* Peter Calder got to eat up large in Buenos Aires courtesy of Aerolineas Argentinas