1. How did something frozen end up in steamy Buenos Aires?

It is a very poorly kept secret that the beef in Argentina is second to none: this is a tidbit well known to the natives though, as your average argentine will consume a world-leading 62 kilos (140 lbs!) of meat each year. The question you will be asking yourself, however, after your innards have been assaulted by their first encounter with La Pampa prime beef is: what sweet could possibly make this experience any more divine? My first week was a blur of asados (barbecues), but I do nonetheless remember my initiation; I remember endless meat, unctuous Mendoza malbecs, home style sausages– but I also remember my shock upon seeing the decadent spread’s conspicuous absence of dessert. In fact the Argentine after-meal ritual involves less the confectioner’s oven and more the telephone: the main purpose of which is to call for a delivery of ice cream. If the word “ice cream” brings to mind visions of Baskin Robbins or Friendly’s you will not understand why those recently satiated with such sublime beef decide to take recourse in dessert from a third party, but once you have had the smallest lick, it will all become clear: Buenos Aires boasts, in this writer’s humble opinion, the world’s best ice cream.

In my previous travels I would have given that epicurean laurel to Italy, more particularly to the gelati of Italy’s breadbasket, Milan. The strength that the Italians have always had is a thriving tradition of ice cream makers with recipes that descend back generations. Yet the tide of immigration that flooded the shores of America both North and South in the beginning of the 20th Century brought not only Italian workers, but recipe-toting ice cream makers as well. And when they arrived in the Río de la Plata they found something fortuitous for those of us addicted to frozen sweets: the cows of the extensive Argentine Pampa produce a milk particularly suited to Italian gelato. The result: top end ice cream with the bright flavours of Italian gelato and the richness of american ice cream.

Most of the better ice cream houses here in Buenos Aires still sport Italian names. The Río de la Plata and ice cream are strange bedfellows, though, if you realise just how far away (geographically) the temperate region lies from anything icy. Enter in 1829 an industrious Genovese merchant by the name of Caprile who had the half-baked scheme to schlep ice from the Italian alps across the equator to the port of Buenos Aires. The hair-brained plan worked, and the city’s inhabitants were soon enthralled with the sorbetti and gelati of the upper crust cafés. Pioneering parlours such as Café de los Catalanes and Confitería de los Suizos combined the novelty with exotic fruits and hip spices such as cinnamon and vanilla, and its been a nonstop lave affair ever since. In 1913 the world’s first electric freezer bursted onto the ice cream stage, so Argentines no longer needed to import ice from across the globe (usually the U.S.). This handy invention coincided with a wave of immigration from Europe, and a wave of new european ice cream recipes. An ice cream after a hearty asado became something accessible not only to the privileged gentry strolling Avenida Corrientes, but to just about any Porteño with a spoon.

2. OK, I just finished my steak(s), now what?

Today in Buenos Aires ice cream parlours are strategically placed so that one can lumber with an overly-stuffed stomach with little extraneous effort. There are mass produced ice creams that are decent enough, but in the sake of brevity a short description of my personal top-three (creme de la creme):

1. Persicco:

Utter decadence on a cone. The hip neo-italian styled parlour boasts quirky cream and water based offerings (last night’s specials were mango and a surprisingly tangy watermelon), but the stars here are the chocolates: Chocolate Goldoni with white chocolate-bathed puffed wheat, Chocolate Persicco with chunks of bittersweet chocolate and cognac. And readers of this blog are forbidden to leave without mass-consuming the decadent Chocolate Amargo

2. Chungo:

The few Chungo locales around the city have been recently updated to a more stylish look with tongue-in-cheek Chungo family portraits in a faux victorian style. Seven varieties of chocolate, five dulces de leche round out a solid offering, but the real star here are the fruits. Passion fruit bursts with bright flavour, lemon sorbet has zing in all the right places and the recently added blueberry smacks of freshly picked fruit.

3. Freddo:

This is the largest upper-end chain, but don´t let that inhibit you from dropping in, often, to partake of the dulce de leche flavours dished out at the ubiquitous branches around the city Freddo boasts perhaps the best Dulce de Leche ice cream you will ever try, even though the decor is not as stylish and the lines are inevitably longer.

And what might be most curious to a newcomer to Argentine ice cream culture, outside the door of each of these heladerías awaits a small fleet of up to a dozen mopeds, each festooned with a coldbox for speedy delivery of the lethal sweets to those too beefed-out to leave the dinner table. Thus, at my first asado lamentation that dessert was absent quickly turned into a bliss of frozen dulce de leche.

Autor: Matthew Duskis