Las empanadas

Empanadas for
every occasion.

Empanadas are always the right call. Perfect alongside the wine seminar, for private gatherings or business occasions. Traditional empanadas with golden, buttery pastry, baked in the oven and filled by hand with meat, vegetables or cheese.

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Historia

Two thousand years to get here.

“A speciality made of bread dough that admits any kind of filling.” That is how broadly the Larousse Gastronomique, the chefs’ bible, defines it — broad enough that dough, filling and baking method should leave nothing to argue about. Argentinians argue anyway, province by province.

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento put it best at a lunch in Tucumán in 1869: “Let us love the national empanada, gentlemen — without prejudice to enjoying them all.” Moments earlier he had loudly declared the empanada from San Juan the finest of all, and been answered furiously by guests from every province.

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The father of the empanada

Like a cook adjusting the seasoning before serving, Sarmiento changed his speech on the spot. He turned the empanada into a metaphor for the state of the nation — and hit a nerve: a good share of the blood spilled in Argentina was spilled defending one empanada over another.

The long way round

The first traces of something similar appear in Persia more than two thousand years ago. Greek recipe books know the filled pastry too, usually with lamb. Its purpose was threefold: keep the spiced meat fresh for a while, carry it over long distances — and eat it anywhere, without a plate or cutlery.

It reached the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century with the Muslim conquest; the commander Ziyad al-Layti, better known as Tariq, is the name that survives. Over the centuries it became so popular across Spain that its recipe was printed in Toledo as early as 1525, in Ruperto Nola’s “Libro de guisados”. Giant versions like the Galician empanada are still made today.

And then to America

It crossed the Atlantic with the conquerors and did what every dish does far from home: it made peace with new ingredients, and reinvented itself in the process.

Like Spanish stew or Italian pizza, it found its finest form in the country itself — and on that point no objection is provided for. Every province holds its own recipe to be the right one. On one thing, all the same, everyone agrees.