Argentine HolidayNorthampton’s Caminito Steakhouse offers

traditional Argentine asado right around the corner.

By Sarah GiBBonS

photoGraphy By paul Shoul

An

Beef prepared in the asado style, lightly seasoned with sea salt and cooked on a wood fire

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I wonder how they do it. Vegetarians, that is. And vegans? They demonstrate a resolve and will power that would ensure world peace ten times over if they were qualities shared by

all humanity. If you can avoid cheese, you can do anything.

Except for a two-month stint in high school that had more to do with enraging my mother than with an ethical diet, I’ve been a lifelong cheese- and meat-eater. I can’t help it. I was raised on the stuff. Northampton’s Caminito operates on the premise that I’m not alone.

The highlights on the menu would not appeal to those with the aforemen-tioned dietary restrictions. A pain-fully simple grilled round of sharp, strong, salty provolone is marvelous with some olive oil and Caminito’s homemade buttery rolls.

Provoleta, as with much of Argentine culture, is a transmuted remnant of Italian influence stemming from an influx of Italian immigrants in the nineteenth century. The cheese is scalded on both sides before it finishes in the oven, and it takes on a slightly charred, smoky flavor.

I know what you’re thinking. “It’s just hot cheese, right?” Wrong. The layers of texture a round hunk of cheese takes on when fried and then baked are transformative. As the cheese cools and hardens, it offers an eating experi-ence much different than that offered by its fresh-from-the-kitchen earlier version.

“I don’t really like telling people how simple it is to make,” chef/owner

Joe Gionfriddo half-whispers. But the metamorphic nature of melted cheese suggests that the dish requires careful attention. Too cool and it’s just cheese; too hot and it’s a molten puddle of grease and protein. “People tell me it’s the best fried cheese they’ve ever had,” Joe says. It’s certainly a far cry from mozzarella sticks.

Something tells me Joe has had occa-sion to cook his fair share of pro-voleta. Before coming on as a cook at Caminito shortly after it opened in

2002, Joe learned the ropes in the kitch-en at Roberto’s across town. Armed with no certified culinary training, the Southampton-bred chef instead majored in plant and soil science at UMass, con-centrating on sustainable agriculture, entomology and food crops science.

“I knew throughout my studies that I wanted to focus on aspects of agriculture that pertained closest to food and the restaurant industry, with the hopes that one day I will own a restaurant with a greenhouse, small farm or orchard,” Joe

Head chef and owner Joe Gionfriddo

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explains. “This is something to which I still aspire very much ... .  I want to be able to harvest fruit as well as fruit woods to burn  in my wood-fired grill  and have outdoor  space  for truly authentic asado-style Argentine barbecuing,” adds the chef, who  spent  some  time working at  the Mount Holyoke Botanic Gardens after graduating, while he was also working full-time at Caminito.  For the time being, the restaurant side of his interests won out, and in 2006, Joe acquired Caminito from its then-owners Luciano and Susan Sappia.

It was the Sappias who introduced Joe to Argentinean cui-sine. But he has spent much of his spare time since reading travelogues, history books and  traditional  recipes  to  famil-iarize himself with Argentine cuisine and traditions.  And it 

seems his study has paid off.  The menu is full of Argentinean favorites:  various  cuts  of  meat  cooked  in  the  asado  style, lightly  seasoned with only sea salt and grilled over a wood flame  at  a  lower  temperature  than  at  American  barbecues; pasta dishes noqui (gnocci) and ravioli that again reflect the Italian influence; house-made chorizo grilled and served with chimmichuri; and, of course, the provoleta

 The provoleta itself is intensely rich.  Splitting it between two people with a bottle of bonarda would make for a beau-tiful evening snack.  Prefacing a giant platter of meat needs more time than my companion and I allowed.  But our paril-lada—a  mound  of  beef  ribs,  skirt  steak,  chorizo  and  veal sweetbreads—was  delicately  smoky  and  had  just  the  right amount of char. 

Though  the  country  is  home  to  some  of  the  best  steaks in  the  world,  it’s  impractical  for  Caminito  to  import  meat from Argentina. “Our steaks are in fact not from Argentina, but  are  actually  raised  domestically,  and  sourced  to  have been  farmed  in  a  similar  style  as  those  found  in Argentine pastures,” explains Joe.  The beef is “certified natural black 

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The meat itself is only half of what goes into the asado selections at Caminito. For cooking, the restaurant buys hard woods like oak, maple, cherry, apple, and hickory from local farms and orchards. Part of Joe’s vision is to one day grow his own orchard and use the prunings from those trees to fuel his grill’s fires.

“You need to eat at the Argentinean pace,” Joe coached us when we gawked at the prospect of dessert. But we went with a small helping of slightly bitter chocolate mousse, which was nicely done with fresh whipped cream. At Joe’s suggestion

(“It will help you digest”), we also tried the South American steeped drink Yerba Mate, served traditionally at Caminito in a gourd with a bombilla (a straw engineered with a filter to keep out the leaves). Yerba mate is made from the leaves of an evergreen and has a bitter, acerbic quality one might expect from that family of plants. Sipping it piping hot from the bom-billa almost feels like smoking a pipe. But after the rich meal of cheese and meat, it made a good palate cleanser.

If there’s any time to enjoy a meal like this one, it’s win-ter. One seems to feel the energy storing up as one eats; it’s almost time to hibernate. And while there are a couple of options for the vegetarians among us (vegans might have a harder job), the asado productions from the wood-fired grill are what set Caminito apart from other steakhouses. At Caminito you can enjoy the meat and potatoes of a classic American steakhouse, but with the bright and subtle flavors brought out by buttery Argentinean wine, tart chimmichurri and delicate smoke. P

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TO PREPAREPreheat your oven to 350.Get your cast iron skillet evenly heated to medium/high, or just before the point of smoking.Lightly oil your provolone, one side only, and wipe off any excess. It should be well lubricated but not saturated.Carefully place your provolone firmly, oiled side down, on your cast iron griddle.Let the provolone sear for about one minute, or until the corners of the cheese start to brown lightly and rise from the griddle.With a flexible metal spatula, carefully lift the provolone off the griddle, being careful not to disrupt the seared surface. It should not stick to seasoned cast iron, and should be light to medium golden brown. Too much searing will result in a bitter taste.Place seared side up in an oven-safe casserole dish. Bake for about 5 to 10 minutes, until cheese begins to bubble and is soft in the middle.Remove from the oven and drain off any excess oil/grease. Top with a pinch of diced tomato, oregano, and a little olive oil; season lightly with a small pinch of sea salt. Provoleta is best when eaten still warm, with some crusty bread or a mixed green salad dressed with a simple vinaigrette.

INGREDIENTSAged provolone cheese, cut into rounds 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick (Get the best, most dense provolone you can find from your local Italian deli or market, and have your deli man slice it for you to your desired thickness, as a smooth flat surface is key.)Extra virgin olive oilDiced tomatoDry oreganoSea salt

PROVOLETA“Most people will laugh at how simple this recipe is, but this simplicity is what I want to come through here,” says Caminito chef Joe Gionfriddo. “Argentine food is best when uncomplicated, and to me the most influential recipes have always been those with very few ingredients. When this is the case, quality is of the utmost importance, as is the attention the chef pays to the cooking. For this dish, and for Argentinean cooking in general, the two most important factors are having a well-seasoned cast iron griddle or pan, and having a comfortable working relationship with medium/high heat.”

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