Pa’rri’lla (Pa-ree-ya)

1. Barbecue grill or restaurant.

2. Cast-iron grid or grate is used for grilling or making tortillas.

3. Method of torture where the victim is strapped to a metal frame and subjected to electric shock.

Menu at La Florencia restaurant, Mendoza

Parillada para uno (Rinon, Chichulenes, Chorizo, Morcilla, Molleja, Ubre, Asado o vacio y 1/8 de pollo)

I sat there, drinking my beer, watching the group of four in the corner.  People-watching is a specialty of mine.  I’d heard the accents and watched the mannerisms, and then it was just obvious.  The gay cowboy and his partner were trying to sell their wares to the rich hog and his younger trophy wife.  I was still figuring out what their wares were.

I looked down at the menu and scanned the pork section.  The wife placed her hand on the sweaty man’s mitt.  His comb-over had lifted a little in the heat, so he brushed it back in place with the fat fingers of his other hand.

While in Argentina, I’d promised myself that I would visit a proper Argentinian Parrilla.  I knew I’d find all manner of porcine delights, but I hadn’t expected it amongst the other customers.  My eyes settled on the “Parillada Para Uno”, described as an enticing mix of Tripe, Pork Sausage, Blood sausage, Gizzard, Teat, Veal ribs with a side flat of veal and 1/8 chicken.

The shoulders of Gay Cowboy Number 1 moved up and down with animation.  His partner smoothed the Brille cream on the back of his head.  The heat was causing everyone’s hair to lift.  I sipped at my beer, waiting for my kill to emerge from the kitchen, plonked on a plate.  I watched the ruddy-faced businessman, his wife acting the part of the faithful wife.  She touched his arm some more.  She was definitely having an affair.

The clang of crockery on wood brought me back, as a plate thudded down in front of me, an array of barbequed bits skidding to a halt.  A liver spilled free, and as it did, it’s juice branded my T-shirt.  I looked up to see the waiter already halfway back to the kitchen.

I appreciate that there is a lot of animal protein that we usually discard.  But there’s an argument for why we do.

I studied the carcass, edges cut clean by a cleaver or a circular blade.  I looked up again, momentarily queasy.  Boss hog had just been served his meal.  He rubbed his hands with delight.  I imagined him with an apple stuffed in his gob.

I looked back down at my prey.  They could just as well have dragged the bleeding animal out on to the floor beside me, gasping for air, desperate for the lung on my plate.  Choosing to begin with the steak felt positively wholesome.

The cowboy scratched nervously at his armpit as I chewed at the side flat of veal – an interesting cut of meat – and moved on to my first organ.  I usually have a strong constitution, but, wow, they’d laid it on thick here.  The waiter returned with a pot of oil and chilli mix to help lubricate the body parts on the way down.   I ordered another beer and felt an artery harden.  I considered commencing a statin. The sausage had pieces of gristle the size of eyeballs. Yes, I know.

Gizzard?  Seriously? Teat?  Seriously?  I still don’t want to know what morcilla, molleja or chiculenes are, because I’ll tell you, I’d identified bits.  They weren’t gizzards, and they definitely weren’t teat.

I recognised omentum.  There were two more serves of I don’t know what.  Offel never looked so good in comparison.  I cut at it with a knife.  And then I tasted it.

Seasoned, barbequed shit.

I looked back up at the businessman, his mouth open in defiant laughter.  The Gay Cowboys were losing the deal.  A piece of something fell from his mouth and on to the table.  The deal was off.

I then looked across at the next table, at a three year old boy, nibbling on black pudding.  I felt his lost innocence.  Or my lost innocence.  The taste was still there.  I noticed a tear on my hand.  I realised I was crying.

I pushed aside the side serve of chips untouched, and left the establishment in an intestinal hurry.

* * * * *

Mendoza had been good to me before this.

This was the town where they X-ray your bags when you land.  Where aeroplanes retired from the Russian army are used by the local airline.  Where you are offered a ride into town by passing families with mini-buses.  And where you stay to explore the heart of the Argentinian wine district.

Mendoza is also the world capital of underage, public displays of affection. As I returned to my hotel through Plaza Independencia, I must have seen fifteen sets of 14 to 18 year old kids, all in pairs, all male and female, and all going for it.  Like, really going for it.  At one stage, a girl called out to me in Spanish, and then in English.  I turned to find the only group of girls without male counterparts in all of Mendoza.  I marched on, pushing back the tears, chewing on cud.  They laughed as I went.

I entered my hotel, waved quickly to the manager, and headed up the lift.  True to the hotel’s name, Puerto del Sol was hot.  As I opened the door, I was slapped in the face by a slab of hot air.  I attempted once more to turn off the bar heater in my room, but failed.  It may have been the ideal climate for washing socks and jocks, but with the window locked shut, this town – at the base of Sierra de los Parramillos, an Andean Mountain Range – felt more like a sweaty beachside resort.  I lay there, my guts churning, thinking of my winery tour the next day.  I switched the dream for one with a pina colada by the pool.

By the next morning, I’d lost 26% of my original body weight.  I rose, showered, rehydrated, and then headed out to find a temperate climate and a rather chilly day.  I marvelled at the buses with their white walled tires, expecting to see drivers in collegiate cardigans.  I quizzed several tour operators on their winery tours, each with the same asking price, but claiming vastly varying itineraries.  I ate a Mr Dog(R) to help wash the meat through.  As Charles Darwin said of the Argentinian diet:  “I had now been several days without tasting any thing besides meat: I did not at all dislike this new regimen; but I felt as if it would only have agreed with me with hard exercise.”

I chose, as my form of exercise, the winery tour that included a visit to an olive oil and chocolate factory.  Charlie would have approved.  As my Dog(R) disappeared down my gullet, I boarded a packed mini-bus filled with people, all speaking Spanish, Hebrew or French.  We’d all bought tickets at separate agencies.  What a surprise.  I found a seat by the window and rocked gently, holding my knees.

The tour took us to ‘Carmina Granata’, where our group divided into two;  one for Spanish, and one for English.  I felt decidedly uncool relying on English as my first language.  There were a couple of French Canadians, two more from Israel, and a dear little Canadian girl from Calgary.  No one was quite sure what she was speaking.

Our guide excitedly described the epoxy-lined wine vats he was going to show us.  They each held 20,000 litres of grog.  They were a century old, and getting older by the second.  Eventually he relented and actually let us see them.  As we descended the stairs towards them, the air cooled and took on a fug that would intoxicate within an hour.   We tasted some Malbec, the specialty of the region, and after a couple more, purchased some bottles.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Next was ‘Bebeda y Vinedas Familia Secchin’, an organic winery, where nothing other than copper, sulphate and, it appeared from the smell, the owner’s urine, was used for pesticide.   They proudly showed us their vineyard, with its densely packed rows, only wide enough to pick and plough by hand.  Our guide looked in need of a good sleep.  I mean, I get the organic thing, but turning the soil by hand?  By the end she couldn’t muster the energy to sell us any wine;  probably would have had to barter in potatoes.

The ‘Laur Olive Oil Factory’, however, was the picture of modernity.  With each tree producing 8kg of olives/a litre of oil per year, this slick plant was designed to make cash.  Olive trees can live for thousands of years, but here the majority are sacrificed at 120 years of age, because their best fruit bearing days are over.  The olives are crushed, the mush and pips separated, and the seed used as fuel to power the extraction of the oil.  A laboratory, with Bunsen burners and equipment out of a Bond film is used to measure the oleic acid content, and hence classify the grade of the oil.  We tasted it with bread and sundried tomatoes, and were then frog-marched to the counter to buy.  Olive oil?  Sure, I’ve got a backpack.  Give me two.

From here we went to another cottage industry, ‘Chocolates – Dulces y Mas’.  The shopfront is the living room to the home of a little old Swiss husband and wife, who spend their days making jams, chocolates and liqueurs.  It seems in retirement, they’ve really hit their stride.  They produce Rum, Absinthe, Vodka and Whisky.  They have Pomelo, Irish Cream and Tia Maria.  There are cream liqueurs and crème liqueurs.  They make fruit liqueurs and nut liqueurs.  They have a herbal liqueur mixed with banana and white chocolate.  There is one based on aniseed and rose petals.  There is even one called Tobacco, made, as I understand, from old cigarette butts.  It seems that anything this couple have ever put near his nose or mouth is worthy of consideration.

We tasted a few varieties, more out of curiosity than for enjoyment.  After three, they began to sit heavy in my stomach.  I really should have asked for the meat liqueur.  The timid little Canadian said something, several words that all seemed to have four O’s in a row.  It sounded Icelandic.  The Israelis laughed, and she didn’t try it again.

We drove back to town and I was dropped back near the corner of my sun hotel.  I realised after the bus had driven off that I hadn’t looked back to wave. I’m not sure that I’ve ever felt less sentimental about leaving a group of people in my life.

* * * * *

The following day I caught a bus across the Andes.  It had white walled tires, but the driver had forgotten his cardigan.  They screened a movie called “Incorrigibles”, an Argentinian comedy which was essentially a vehicle, it seemed, for Gisela Van Lacke’s breasts.  Occasionally the inane comedy of local favourite Guillermo Francella would get in the way, but on the whole, it and he did not.  Argentinians are not known for their subtlety around sex.  On my first day in Buenos Aires I had seen more billboards for an adult store named ‘Buttman’ than I had for the Michael Bolton’s upcoming tour.  But there is something refreshing about it’s openness;  there is no time for newspaper opinion pieces about the subversive sexualization of children when you have a front page spread of a naked woman bending over next to an article about agriculture.  See: Nude, Read: Farming.  No context required.  It’s kind of honest in its transparency.

Occasionally the inane comedy of local favourite Guillermo Francella would get in the way, but on the whole, it and he did not.  Argentinians are not known for their subtlety around sex.  On my first day in Buenos Aires I had seen more billboards for an adult store named ‘Buttman’ than I had for the Michael Bolton’s upcoming tour.  But there is something refreshing about it’s openness;  there is no time for newspaper opinion pieces about the subversive sexualization of children when you have a front page spread of a naked woman bending over next to an article about agriculture.  See: Nude, Read: Farming.  No context required.  It’s kind of honest in its transparency.

“Incorrigibles” began and ended with a wet T-shirt scene, a feat of ingenuity in a film about a bank robbery, and before I knew it, my bags, my wine, my oil and I were making our way towards the centre of Santiago.  I was yet to be decide where I would stay, but, again for old times sake, I headed to look at a hotel I’d stayed at before and laugh.  As I trudged through Plaza de Armas, I became increasing tempted to crack open one of the three bottles of wine.  Each step, my hopes for a reflective experience like Buenos Aires were fading.

But then I saw something.  As I drew closer, the weight began to lift.  There he was.

His spine curved forward a little more, and cataracts left his eyes more clouded than last time.  He had the beginnings of a beard, but had shaved at least once since I last saw him in exactly this point, six years earlier.  He hadn’t seemed to age that much, but when you already look 104, six more years can be kind.  He wore the very same tracksuit top, and the same open toe sandals.  And he still had the ukelele, still without strings.

I don’t know that I should have felt such a sensation of gratitude for seeing the same poor man still living on the street.  But I did.  The familiarity was comforting.  I even got a photo of him.  And as a backdrop there was a newsstand, a row of porno mags up against the glass.  And directly under them: a magazine on gardening, a book on knitting, and a farming magazine.

It was perfect.

One Response to “Notes from Mendoza, Argentina”

1. Em says:

   May 31, 2010 at 11:53 am

   Nice to see your blogs up & running, Mark.
   Keep up the good work.
   Em