Go for the Women, Stay for the Asado

This past weekend I had the fortunate opportunity of attending two traditional Argentine asados.  And asado is similar to a barbecue in the States.  Friends and/or family come over to one's house for a large but simple meal mainly consisting of beef, beef, and more beef.  Of course there are a couple of side dishes like potato salad or a simple lettuce and tomato salad drenched in oil and vinegar; and you have plenty of soda, wine, and beer.  People stay around for hours talking, eating, singing, or whatever, but the main event is the preparation and ingestion of the beef.

The way in which the asado is prepared differs greatly from what I knew as barbecue (and I understand there to be at least three major types of barbecue in the States: Regular Barbecue made with chicken, pork, or beef slathered in an heavy barbecue sauce, North Carolina Barbecue usually of pulled pork drenched in spices and vinegar, and the best Texas Barbecue: a slow cooked beef brisket so tender you don't need a knife).  The asado is cooked in a fire-pit of sorts.  First, wood coals are lit and burned until they are extremely hot but no longer with a flame.  Then the beef that has been simply prepared with a rubbing of coarse salt is placed on a grate over the hot coals and allowed to cook slowly.  The cuts of meat you understand are quite different than what we have in the States: there are ribs but they consist mainly of the meat around not between the bone, there is a cut from the backside of the animal, a kind of sausage, and for the adventurous you can have intestines or blood-sausage.  All of it is extremely delicious, and I recommend trying it all if you have the chance.  I would like to cook asado in the States but I just don't know if all the necessary ingredients could be found: the fire-pit, different cuts of meat, and brave souls to eat my cooking.  We shall see...

Chau.