AsadoAdventure

16/08/2026

A honeymooning couple. A solo traveler back in Buenos Aires 25 years after his last visit, when work barely gave him time to look up. Same table, same fire, same asado. Snippets from the day below.

06/08/2026

I think I found my favorite restaurant in Buenos Aires right now.

At NESS, we sat only a few steps from the open kitchen, watching the cooks manage the fire and nearly every plate being assembled. The food was excellent, but the warmth of everyone working there made the dinner even better.

I wrote about the entire experience, including our unexpected visit to the upstairs production kitchen. Tap the link in my bio, then select Tours and Blog.


19/07/2026

The team that played better won. It was a just ending. Congratulations to  Spain. They have been excellent throughout the whole tournament. They only received one goal throughout.

18/07/2026

Spain colonized the territory that became Argentina. Yet Sunday’s World Cup final is not a grudge match.

That is what makes Argentina against Spain so different from Argentina against England.

Argentina and Spain met during the group stage of the 1966 World Cup. Argentina won 2–1, and almost nobody is still arguing about it.

Argentina’s match against England at that tournament was another matter. Antonio Rattín’s chaotic dismissal produced enough confusion to help inspire the yellow and red card system football still uses today.

Argentina removed Spanish rule more than two centuries ago. Spaniards later returned in enormous numbers as immigrants and became part of the country Argentina was building. Argentina inherited Spain’s language, food and institutions, but regionalized them, argued over them and made them unmistakably Argentine.

That transformation extends from empanadas and wine to football itself. Buenos Aires-born Alfredo Di Stéfano transformed Real Madrid. Lionel Scaloni spent much of his career in Spain. Lionel Messi arrived in Barcelona at thirteen and became the greatest player in the club’s history.

This final has also produced a wave of racial misinformation about Argentina.

Slavery existed in the territory under Spanish colonial rule and persisted for several decades after independence. Gradual emancipation began in 1813, with complete abolition in the Argentine Confederation in 1853 and in Buenos Aires in 1860.

Argentina did not develop the plantation economy of Brazil, the Caribbean or the American South. Nor does the absence of Black players from one football team prove that the country exterminated its Afro-Argentine population.

Afro-Argentines never disappeared. They experienced racism, economic marginalization and exclusion from the national story. Calling them extinct repeats that erasure. Inventing a massacre also replaces their real history with a viral fiction.

Indigenous history followed a different and often more openly violent path. Military campaigns seized land, killed and captured people, separated families and pushed survivors toward the country’s geographic and economic margins. Those realities deserve serious attention rather than slogans assembled from another country’s history.

Then there is the football family itself.

Several Spanish players currently represent Barcelona. Pedri played beside Messi. Lamine Yamal now wears Barcelona’s number 10 and first met Messi as a five-month-old baby during a charity-calendar photoshoot in 2007.

They admire him. On Sunday, they will do everything possible to defeat him.

IShowSpeed has nevertheless asked Lamine to “save” Ronaldo fans by beating Messi. He is asking Barcelona’s new number 10 to protect a Real Madrid legend from the greatest Barcelona player who ever lived.

That tells us considerably more about Speed’s knowledge of football than it does about this final.

Spain’s precision and efficiency will meet Argentina’s emotion, adaptability and ability to survive difficult matches. They have been the tournament’s two best teams in very different ways.
Against England, history entered the stadium with the players. Against Spain, it feels more like family meeting there.
Full article in the first comment.

Argentina and Spain share centuries of history but very little football hostility. Before the World Cup final, explore how Argentina ended Spanish rule, welcomed Spanish immigrants and transformed Spain’s influence on its language, food and football.

15/07/2026

Even Liam Gallagher is nervous.

That alone should tell you Argentina versus England is not an ordinary semifinal. Liam has spent this tournament sounding supremely confident about England. Then Argentina advanced, and suddenly he discovered humility.

It takes a lot to knock the cockiness out of Liam Gallagher.
The rivalry, though, is only one layer of the story.

Britain tried twice to take Buenos Aires and failed. Later, British money financed railways, British engineers helped shape the city, British immigrants brought football, and British cattle breeds helped transform Argentine beef.

Argentina absorbed those influences and did what it usually does. It rewrote the recipe.

A British sport became an Argentine obsession. British cattle ended up over a gaucho’s fire. An Italian digestif went into Coca-Cola. European foods arrived, changed accents, and eventually stopped explaining where they came from.

My new article looks at the history behind today’s Argentina versus England semifinal through asado, football, immigration, national identity, and the people who are too often edited out of Argentina’s story.

Argentina did not become Argentina by keeping outside influences at the border. It became itself by transforming what it borrowed, while slowly recognizing the value of what had already been here.

In a few hours, Argentina and England will argue over one of those borrowed things for ninety minutes.

We are too, Liam.

Read the full article:
https://www.asadoadventure.com/post/argentina-vs-england-the-argentine-asado-history-behind-the-rivalry

10/07/2026

Argentina v Switzerland, and the most famous Swiss meal in Argentina isn’t Swiss.

Tomorrow Argentina and Switzerland meet again. While we're all counting down the hours, here's one of my favorite food stories behind this matchup.

Outside Bariloche sits Colonia Suiza, founded by Swiss families who crossed the Andes after spending years in Chile.

Their signature meal is curanto. Meat, potatoes and vegetables are layered over hot stones, covered with leaves and earth, then left to cook for hours.

Doesn't sound very Swiss, does it?

The technique wasn’t brought from Switzerland. The settlers adopted it after their years in southern Chile, where curanto has deep Indigenous roots.

Argentina and Switzerland have met twice at the World Cup. The last time, it took until the 118th minute for Ángel Di María to score the winner.

Some things are simply worth waiting for.



Image credit/source: Patagoniacity. The page describes curanto as cooked in a pit over hot stones, covered with maqui branches, burlap and wet earth. Link in the comments.

09/07/2026

Every country has a food that quietly takes over on a national holiday.

In Argentina, it's pastelitos.

These flaky pastries are usually filled with quince paste or sweet potato, fried until golden, then brushed with syrup. You can find them in bakeries all year long, but on Independence Day they seem to appear everywhere.

I hadn't planned on writing about them today. Then my wife walked through the door carrying this plate.

That's the thing about living somewhere long enough. Sometimes a holiday doesn't announce itself with fireworks. Sometimes it arrives in a paper box from the neighborhood bakery.

Feliz Día de la Independencia, Argentina! 🇦🇷