Food & Drink

Uruguayan food is traditionally based on its European roots, including Mediterranean foods, especially from Italy, Spain, France and Germany, such as pasta, sausages and desserts.

Most restaurants are parrilladas (grillrooms), which serve the most famous traditional dish, the asado (barbecued beef). Other specialities include grilled chicken in wine, morcilla salada (salty sausage), morcilla dulce (sweet black sausage made from blood, orange peel and walnuts) and puchero (beef with vegetables, bacon, beans and sausages). Dulce de Leche is a sweet paste used to fill cookies, cakes, pancakes, milhojas, and alfajores and forms a part of many desserts.

Other popular dishes include:

• Canadian Chivito: a sandwich containing steak, ham, cheese, tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise.
• Choripan: a very popular Uruguayan fast food consisting of grilled sausage and a crusty bread such as a baguette, with tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise.
• Caruso sauce: a typical Uruguayan pasta sauce made from double cream, meat extract, onions, ham and mushrooms. It is very popular with sorrentinos and agnolotti.
• Empanada : a small pie or turnover, most commonly filled with meat or ham and cheese.
• Empanada Gallega: a fish pie, with sauce, onions and green peppers.
• Frankfurters: the typically Uruguayan hot dog.
• Gnocchi (known as ñoquis): potato flour dumplings traditionally eaten on the 29th day of each month.
• Hungarians: very similar to the Frankfurter, but very spicy.
• Milanesa: a thin, breaded steak.
• Pascualina: a spinach pie, not unlike the spinach pies found throughout the Mediterranean.
• Pastel de carne: a meat pie, containing chopped meat, smash potatoes, green peppers, olives and eggs.
• Russian salad: potatoes, carrots, peas and mayonnaise.

Desserts

• Alfajores: shortbread biscuits, sandwiched together with Dulce de Leche or a fruit paste.
• Budin Ingles: a pudding made with fruits and nuts, very popular in Christmas and New Year's Eve.
• Chajá: a desert with meringue, sponge cake, cream and peaches.
• Dulce de Leche: a sweet treat made of milk and sugar.
• Flan con Dulce de Leche: a rich custard dessert with a layer of soft caramel on top.
• Garrapiñada: a popular treat, made with peanuts, vanilla and sugar and sold in little bags on the streets.
• Martin Fierro: a slice of cheese and a slice of quince paste (dulce de membrillo).
• Pastafrola: a pie made from quince paste.
• Strudel: the famous apple pie from Germany.

Beverages

The national drink is Grappamiel; an alcoholic drink made with alcohol and honey. It is often consumed in the cold mornings of autumn and winter to warm up the body. Locally produced wines are good quality, beers very good.

Another traditional drink is mate, which is made by placing the dried leaves and twigs of the yerba mate plant in a small cup, and adding hot water (not boiling). The drink is sipped through a metal or cane straw called bombilla.