Andean Northwest Food & Traditional Cuisine

Northwestern food is the least European cooking in Argentina and the most interesting for it.

The base is Andean: maize in many forms, potatoes in varieties unknown further south, quinoa, beans and squash, alongside llama and goat rather than the beef that dominates the rest of the country. Chilli is used, mildly, which is also unusual in Argentina.

The Spanish layer brought wheat, and the region’s empanadas — baked in a clay oven, small, juicy, made with hand-cut beef rather than mince — are widely held to be the best in Argentina. The rivalry between Salta and Tucuman over whose are better is genuine and unresolved.

Cooking methods reflect scarcity of fuel and the altitude: long stews, clay ovens, and drying. Charqui — sun-dried meat, the word that gave English jerky — is an Andean technique still in use.

Coca leaf is chewed for altitude and is legal in the northwestern provinces.

Empanadas saltenas are the region’s emblem: hand-cut beef, potato, spring onion and cumin in a thin pastry, baked in a clay oven until blistered, and small enough to eat several. They are juicy enough that there is a correct way to hold one.

Locro, a thick stew of hominy corn, beans, squash and several cuts of pork, cooked for hours — the national dish on patriotic holidays and at its best here.

Humita and tamales: the first fresh corn with cheese and onion steamed in the husk, the second dried maize dough with meat wrapped in a corn leaf.

Llama, served as steak, stew or charqui — lean, dark and slightly sweet — and goat, roasted whole in the Calchaqui valleys.

Cayote jam and goat cheese from Cafayate, usually eaten together, and quinoa in soups and salads.

Also: tamal variations by province, picante de pollo, and the chilli-mild salsa criolla that accompanies everything.

Market comedores are where to eat. Salta’s Mercado San Miguel and the municipal markets in Jujuy, Tilcara and Humahuaca have stalls serving locro, humita and tamales at very low prices, cooked by women who have done it for decades.

Empanada shops are a specific institution, often selling nothing else, with the clay oven visible. A dozen is a normal order for two people.

Village markets in the Quebrada sell Andean produce that does not appear further south — dozens of potato varieties, dried maize in several colours, quinoa, coca leaf and llama charqui.

Penas are the northwest’s live-music restaurants, where folk musicians play zamba and chacarera and the audience sings along and eventually dances. Salta’s Balcarce street is full of them and they are the best night out in the region.

Coca is sold openly in the markets and chewed with a little alkaline bica; it is legal in these provinces and helps with altitude.

The northwest makes wine at altitudes that almost nowhere else attempts, and it produces a grape Argentina has made its own.

Cafayate, in the Calchaqui valleys at around 1,700 metres, is the centre. The combination of intense high-altitude sunlight, very low humidity, huge day-to-night temperature swings and sandy soils produces wines of unusual concentration and aromatic intensity.

Torrontes is the region’s signature: a white grape of Argentine origin, floral and perfumed on the nose like a Muscat but dry and crisp in the mouth, which surprises people. Cafayate makes the best of it in the country. Malbec, Tannat and Cabernet Sauvignon also do well and are darker and more structured than Mendoza’s.

Further north, Molinos and Colome grow vines above 2,300 metres, and some plots in Salta and Jujuy sit near 3,000 metres — among the highest commercial vineyards in the world.

Many bodegas are open for tasting, several with restaurants and rooms, and the harvest festival falls in February.

Chicha, fermented maize beer, is the older Andean tradition and is still made in the villages.