Northeast Food & Traditional Cuisine

The Litoral eats differently from the rest of Argentina, and the difference is Guarani and Paraguayan rather than Italian and Spanish.

The staples are cassava — mandioca — and maize rather than wheat and potato, appearing boiled, fried, as flour and as starch. River fish from the Parana and Uruguay are the protein: surubi, dorado, pacu and boga, grilled, stewed or baked in clay.

The Paraguayan influence is direct and unmistakable, since the border is a river and the culture crosses it freely — chipa, sopa paraguaya and mbeju all belong on both sides.

Then the crops that shaped the province: yerba mate, drunk constantly and grown here, and the tropical fruit that the climate allows.

In Misiones a fourth layer appears in the Polish and Ukrainian villages, where pierogi and stuffed cabbage are made alongside chipa.

Chipa is the regional bread: a small ring or roll of cassava starch, cheese, egg and fat, baked and best eaten warm. It is sold from baskets on every bus and at every terminal, and it is the thing to try first.

Surubi, a large catfish from the Parana, grilled over embers or baked with tomato and peppers, and dorado, a prized river game fish.

Sopa paraguaya, which is not a soup at all but a dense baked maize and cheese cornbread, and chipa guazu, a moister version made with fresh corn.

Mbeju, a flat cassava-starch and cheese pancake cooked dry in a pan.

Reviro, a Misiones staple of flour and fat broken up in a hot pan into crumbly pieces, eaten at breakfast or with stew — poverty food that stayed.

Also: terere through the summer, cassava in every form, and yerba-flavoured ice cream and desserts.

Chipa is sold everywhere — from baskets carried onto buses, at terminals, at roadside stalls — and the correct way to eat it is warm and immediately.

Terere is the regional ritual: mate with iced water and crushed herbs, shared from a guampa through a metal straw, drunk through the afternoon in company. In the summer heat it makes more sense than hot mate and everyone carries a thermos.

Riverside grills at Corrientes and Posadas cook the day’s catch, and the fish is genuinely fresh.

Market comedores in the provincial towns serve cassava, stews and river fish cheaply.

Yerba mate cooperatives in Misiones receive visitors, and seeing the drying and ageing process explains a good deal about why the drink tastes as it does.

Slavic villages like Apostoles and Oberá hold food festivals with pierogi and sausage alongside chipa, which is an unexpected combination that works.

The northeast is too wet and humid for serious viticulture — Argentina’s wine is made a thousand kilometres west in the desert — and the region’s drink is something else entirely.

Yerba mate is the defining one, and it is grown here. The leaves of Ilex paraguariensis are harvested, flash-dried over fire, coarsely ground and then aged for up to two years, and Argentina drinks more of it per head than almost any country drinks anything. The gourd is shared — one person fills and pours, everyone drinks in turn from the same metal straw, and saying gracias means you have had enough. Refusing the gourd outright is a small social rebuff.

Terere, the iced version with herbs, is the northeastern summer drink and comes from Paraguay.

Cana, sugarcane spirit, is made locally, often infused with fruit or honey.

A small number of tropical fruit wines and craft beers are produced in Misiones, and the province also grows tea — most of Argentina’s black tea comes from here, largely for export and blending.