Uruguay

One evening after work, Amy picked me up and we headed to Orange County to experience Uruguay. The first stop was Puerto Madero, a South American market and food counter in Santa Ana owned by a Uruguayan. There Amy and I had chicken empanadas, spinach empanadas, chimichurri sauce, cañoncitos de dulce de leche (tubes of pastry with caramel in them), and alfajores de maizena (mini-cookies with caramel in between, rolled in coconut). That is just a taste of Uruguayan food, and here is more: https://ourbigescape.com/24-authentic-uruguayan-recipes/

At Puerto Madero, we also found food items from Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador. We had so many questions, the workers suggested going to ask the owner at his larger location, El Gaucho in Anaheim. Amy adventurously and graciously consented considering how late it was, and we found that many of the items at the second store were the same, with the addition of huge mural with the flag of Uruguay. My first purchase was a faina mix that I made for Allan and we both enjoyed. Here is a recipe if you can’t get the mix: https://www.thespruceeats.com/faina-garbanzo-flatbread-3029673

My second purchase was a bottle of the great chimichurri sauce. I used it on breakfast patties and then for a salad at my cooking group. The salad was a big hit. Several people told me it was their favorite thing that night: https://www.lovefromtheland.com/gringo-chimichurri-quinoa-salad/

The next month, for the same cooking group, I made a Uruguayan spicy baked cheese. It calls for a thick slice of provolone, so I went to Cheese Cave in Claremont. They would only cut it flat if I bought the whole wedge, so we had more than enough for this recipe and to use it grated in other things. Later, I saw a log of provolone at Stater Bros. That would have been a more efficient choice. If you try this recipe, serve it and eat it immediately. It gets hard if it sits: https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2014/02/25/uruguayan-spicy-baked-cheese

For more Uruguayan food, check out their episode on Parts Unknown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4E5Ch5O90w

For Uruguayan literature, I had already read The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories by Horacio Quiroga when I was taking Spanish classes. The title story still sticks with me. For this blog, I read I Had to Survive by Roberto Canessa. The first half of the book describes the famous plane crash and how a few of them survived. The second half shows how the author’s life since then and the lives of his pediatric cardiology patients are just like plane crash victims trying to survive. It’s an interesting book and a unique metaphor.

More literature from Uruguay can be found here:

· New Voices in Uruguayan Poetry: https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/collection/december-2014-new-voices-in-uruguayan-poetry/

· The City and the Writer: Montevideo: https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2018-08/the-city-and-the-writer-in-montevideo-uruguay-with-melisa-machado/

Movies from Uruguay are relatively easy to find. I watched the movie Togo on Netflix about a man who stands up to drug dealers in his neighborhood. Other options on Netflix are A Twelve Year Night and El Pepe: A Supreme Life. Kanopy has Roads in February, One or Two Questions, Mr. Kaplan, and Birds of Passage. A Useful Life on Tubi is an ode to cinema: https://pluto.tv/en/on-demand/movies/5c3cec984d28021518b3e98b

I appreciated that art came up for Uruguay when I checked Khan Academy. Here are a couple of articles:

· Inverted America: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/latin-america-modernism/constructivism/a/torres-garca-inverted-america

· Geometric abstraction https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/latin-america-modernism/constructivism/a/geometric-abstraction-in-south-america-an-introduction

I enjoyed learning about the unique history in the video titled “Why does Uruguay exist?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzsCn_wKfbI

And I loved the very practical shoes the women wear in their folk dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojurz8T8Q8s

There are great places to visit in Uruguay: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-uruguay/. I would love to go! I hope for a time when broad travel gives us new perspectives. In the meantime, I’m hoping we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace, health, and safety to flourish in Uruguay and throughout the world.

Photo Credit: Paz Arando https://unsplash.com/photos/ISf-Z96VRk4