We’ve been in Argentina for 3.5 weeks but haven’t yet tasted any foods that different from what we have in the States.

Sure, the empanadas are 10x better and 4x cheaper than Julia’s Empanadas in D.C., the steaks are so fantastic it’s hard to believe meat this good is possible, and the helado / ice cream, while not as inexpensive I’d like, is quite good. And with the Italian influence in Argentina we’ve eaten more pizza than I’d care to admit. (Real restaurants here don’t open until 9pm but pizza is a “snack” cafes and bars will serve at 6pm.) So, all and all, there’s been some great food, but nothing so different that I’ve felt inspired to write about it.

Until now.

This weekend we went to a Mendoza wine bar for a wine tasting. We sampled 11 different wines (2 wine flights plus the server let us sample a sweet wine). The wine tasting was incredibly fun and the server guided us through each wine. When she brought us the sweet wine she said that it goes really well with blue cheese and alcayota jelly. Having no clue what “alcayota” is she explained that it’s like spaghetti squash inside only it’s the size, shape, and color of a green baseball. We had seen these in the grocery store.

After she explained she went to the kitchen and brought out the jar so we could try it. Granted, I had had 11 very small tastings of wine so at this point of lot of things would taste good; but the alcayota jam was amazing!

So, the next day we went to the local supermarket, purchased a jar along with some blue cheese and crackers and made a lunch of it.

Marmelada de Alcayota tasted even better than I had remembered it from the previous evening. It’s fairly sweet and the spaghetti squash texture is fun.

Now I know what I’ll be putting in everyone’s Christmas stockings. The question is, what is Customs going to think when I try to carry all these jars home?