The Argentine Asado: Fire as National Identity

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The Argentine asado is not a barbecue. It is a social institution, a weekly ritual, and a national identity — "fire is a very strong part of Argentina's identity," as chef Augusto Mayer puts it. The asado begins with a morning pilgrimage to the butcher, continues with building the fire and waiting (sometimes hours) for the coals to be right, and reaches its peak when the meat goes on the grill, the wine is poured, and the fire hisses and snaps. The techniques descend directly from the gauchos (cowboys of the Pampas) and before them from the Ona Indians of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, who cooked in embers long before the Spanish arrived. Francis Mallmann — Patagonia-born, French-trained, South America's most celebrated chef — codified the tradition into Seven Fires: seven distinct methods of cooking with wood and flame. At age forty, after years of French haute cuisine in Buenos Aires, he had an epiphany: "I was tired of making fancy French food for wealthy customers." He returned to the elemental ways of his childhood — wood, fire, cast iron — and in doing so gave Argentine cooking permission to be itself.

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