Tandil Salami

I made my 2nd trip to Tandil, Argentina in less than 2 months. A city I hadn't heard of since only a few months ago, but now is an important place for my business. Tandil is about 4 hours away from Buenos Aires, to the southwest. It's not completely rural, as there are about 100,000 people, but it's not on many tourists must-see list, in a country with so much going for it, with Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Patagonia, etc... Tandil is famous for a few things, Macri - the current president, Asado, and Salami.

I care about all 3 of those things. As you may or may not know, doing business in Argentina is complicated. Not as bad as India, but let's just say it's not exactly SIngapore. Why is it so complicated? Well, mainly due to the incredible mis-management of finances by the country for decades upon decades. The people have a severe mistrust for the government and banks. Many citizens of Argentina have had their life savings decimated due to the severe devaluation of the peso. As a result, they aren't likely to keep much money in their local bank, and rather prefer keeping USD under their mattress. Crazy, I know, but once you've spoken to enough locals you get the picture. The Kirchners ran Argentina for the past decade with terrible policies aimed at supporting the labor class. This promoted large tarifs on electronics, massive corruption, and generally difficult circumstances for business as a whole. As a result, it's difficult to get cash, hard to use credit cards, and a real mess to be a consumer, let alone a businessman. That is until Macri was elected late 2015. He's an engineer by trade, a product of Tandil, and very pro-business. He has plans for overhauling the countries policies, ridding of corruption, and making Argentina an attractive place to do business in. It was a huge step for the country and President Obama came to meet with him, which was his first trip to Argentina. It went a long way for building relationships and trade.

The second item Tandil is famous for is the asado. Asado is basically an Argentine BBQ, but our barbeques fail miserably in comparison to theirs. First off, the meat quality in Argentina is just so much better. A colleague said it was because the cows here are happy cows. What makes a happy cow? A nice combination of flat terrain, mild weather, grass fed, room to roam, and no anti-biotics or other drugs we force on our animals in the U.S. As a result the meat melts in your mouth and the country has the highest per capita red meat consumption in the world. An asado is an even bigger past-time in rural Argentina, like Tandil than the big city of Buenos Aires. Here, the asador (grillmaster) will spend hours just on the prepwork of the grill, getting the temperature just right, before he even thinks about putting those tender slabs of cow on the grill. Here is a picture of our asado the incredible feast.

Lastly, Salami is famous for the salamis. Wow, they were absolutely incredible. I've had salami from the grocery store and specialty delis in the U.S. and it's just not the same. Here in Tandil they hang in bunches similar to bananas with their skins on, locking in the juices of the meat. I sampled a few at the store, thankfully with my translating colleagues, and tried to regular and spicy salamis. I bought as much as I had cash that day. I took them home later for Christie and I to share with cheese, which I also got from Tandil. We bought a fresh loaf of bread and the always spectacular malbec and that was our dinner 2 nights in a row. I could have gone for 3, but we ate everything. We'll have to make another run to Tandil before we leave in May!