Emma’s Kitchen - Wine & Spirits Magazine

Emma’s Kitchen

A Vegetarian Life in the Land of Malbec


The table holds a feast: trays of onion empanadas wrapped in thin, crisp dough; roasted peppers redolent with garlic; voluptuous stuffed artichokes. There are avocados and bowls of mayonnaise, made with olive oil, to spread on the homemade bread. There is eggplant lasagna and several bottles of malbec. And at the head of the table is Emma Zuccardi, smiling with pleasure as she watches her family—son, grandchildren and great-grandchildren—pass the dishes around.

Emma is 93 years old and has just published Emma’s Kitchen, her first book. It’s a collection of the recipes that, for decades, she has prepared for her husband, her children and her grandchildren at the Zuccardi winery.

Emma Zuccardi finds no difficulty in pairing Argentine malbec with vegetables: She’s been doing it daily for 40 years.

Her hair perfectly coiffed, with the austere elegance of Mendocinas, Emma insists that I try another empanada. It’s impossible to refuse her warm smile. It’s the same smile you see on her son, José, who built the family business in the 1990s to become one of the most important wineries in Argentina, and on her eldest grandson, Sebastián, who in the last five years has been making the wines. “Yes, Emma. Muchas gracias,” I say, the empanada already on my plate.

Emma’s recipes are almost entirely vegetarian, something that seems like an eccentricity in Argentina, and particularly in Mendoza, where meat is not only part of the basic diet, but also a way of socializing: The asado is an excuse for families and friends to come together by the grill.

One of her reasons for writing a quasi-vegetarian book is that, blinded by the quality of the meat, many people miss the quality of Mendoza’s vegetables. Yet one taste of Mendozan tomatoes and your world view of the fruit can change completely.

Another is more personal, Emma explains. About 40 years ago, her husband, Alberto, who founded the winery in 1963, came out of a stressful meeting feeling unwell. “I remember that he went to my office, which was in front of his, and I saw him pale, complaining. Fortunately it was nothing serious, but the doctor recommended no meat for a couple of weeks,” Emma recalls, while I devour the empanada.

Until that moment, Emma tells me, her husband ate meat almost every day. However, after two meat-free weeks, he felt so good that he decided to change his diet completely. “And the truth is that I had never seen him so well since he was young,” she tells me, passing the eggplant lasagna.

Emma transformed the nightly menus. “There was, occasionally, some meat for the little ones, but most of what I cooked was vegetables.” Emma says, while Sebastián, sitting next to her, nods. “Since I can remember, my grandfather was a vegetarian,” he says, the scent of the steaming lasagna rising from the pan.

The pasta in the lasagna does not so much melt in the mouth as it simply evaporates, letting the flavor of the eggplant linger. “Would you like another bit?” she asks me, smiling. “Yes. Muchas gracias, Emma.”

Meat, according to Emma, is a faithful and easy-to-cook companion. You put it on the grill and that’s it. Vegetables, meanwhile, require more time and attention. “You have to choose them in the market, you have to clean them well, you have to peel them and cook them. And there are so many ways to do them. That is entertaining,” she adds.

Despite her age, Emma continues to go to the winery daily, except on Tuesdays, when she has a standing appointment with the hairdresser. In fact, her family has told me that, a few years ago, on the way to the hospital to have hip surgery, she insisted on stopping at the hairdresser. I ask her if the story is true and she nods, smiling. “And I tell you something else: When I had elbow surgery, I even asked the hairdresser to come to the hospital to comb my hair. Old, lame, but not with witch hair!” she says, smiling again as we enjoy an almost ethereal caramel flan for dessert.

Alberto died in 2014, at age 92, but wine still plays an important role in Emma’s life. With him, they drank a glass at lunch every day, and today she still does the same. She says she likes her grandson’s wines better, in fact, and also that she loves the one that bears her name, the Bonarda Emma, a refreshing red from the heights of Uco Valley. But her favorite is Q Malbec.

That was the wine she enjoyed with Alberto. Several times she remembers him in our conversation. Recollections of her life before and after Alberto, a young blond who came to Mendoza and would accompany her throughout her life, a life in which they built the foundations of their family winery and a collection of recipes filled with delicious vegetables in the land of meat. “Would you like a little more of the flan?” she asks. “Yes. Muchas gracias, Emma.”


Malbec and Vegetables

Less than a decade ago, the landscape of Argentine wine was dominated by heavyweight reds: concentrated, superripe and strongly influenced by wood. The only choice for those wines was a juicy cut of meat off the grill.

Today, however, wines with less extreme ripeness, with greater freshness, are what tend to predominate. And this has had two important effects. The first is that the rich panorama of Argentine terroirs comes across more clearly. And, second, the malbecs are much easier to drink (dangerously easier) and open to a wider spectrum of possibilities in the kitchen.

For lighter malbecs, look to the Uco Valley, where the high altitude makes for lower temperatures, producing subtle and fresh reds. Wines from Altamira, for instance, with their firm tannins, luminous acidity and vibrant fruit, can match rich, velvety dishes like spinach croquettes or corn pudding. More exuberant and aromatic malbecs from the heights of Gualtallary will take on a traditional pascualina, a pie that Emma prepares with spinach or artichokes bound in a generous amount of ricotta. More robust styles, like those from the stony soils of Los Chacayes, can match tomaticán—a local preparation of eggs with Mendoza’s succulent tomatoes.

For specific wine recommendations, search our online database for wine recommendations from W&S October 2019.


Onion Empanadas

Adapted from Emma’s Kitchen: Recipes from a Mendoza Family, by Emma Zuccardi

Ingredients
  

Pastry

  • 2 cups (500 g) flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2/3 cup (150g) cold butter diced
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 3/4 cup milk

Filling

  • 2.2 pounds (1 kg) onions
  • 1 1/3 cup (300g) butter
  • 3 hard-boiled eggs
  • 1 tablespoon dried oregano
  • Salt to taste

Instructions
 

  • To make the pastry, combine the dry ingredients in a largebowl. Add the butter and work it into the flour mixture with your fingertipsuntil it resembles small peas. Form a well in the mixture and add the egg yolksand milk. Combine, turning the dough out onto a lightly floured board to mixcompletely. Form the dough into a ball, cover it in plastic wrap and allow itto rest for at least half an hour.
  • Meanwhile, make the filling: Cut the onions in half; peel them and slice them thin. In a large sauté pan, melt the butter and add the onions, cooking them gently until soft and sweet. Season generously with oregano and salt; let cool.
  • Half an hour before you’re ready to cook the empanadas, heat the oven to 425°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll out the dough to a thickness of ¼-inch and use a 4-inch cutter to form as many rounds as you need. Spoon a generous tablespoon of sautéed onions into the center of each round, sprinkle with chopped egg, and then fold the dough over, crimping the edges together to seal the empanada. If you like, beat an egg with a tablespoon of water and brush the mixture onto the empanada; it will give it a glossy shine. Place the empanadas on the baking sheet and bake them for 35 to 40 minutes, until golden brown. Serve with a fresh Uco Valley malbec.

is the author of Descorchados, an annual guide to the wines of South America, and covers Chile for W&S.


This story appears in the print issue of October 2019.
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