Sticking their hands inside the pens, little kids giggle as they try to pet a 500kg cow while their parents adoringly take pictures. A few feet away at a restaurant called ‘Las Razas’, hungry customers are busy ordering steak after steak. Some Argentines at the annual Buenos Aires agro-fair are probably even eyeing the prized cows for their next parrilla.

To most people, steak, mate and malbec are the bastions of Argentina’s gastronomy. Yet according to Slow Food, an international grassroots, eco-gastronomic non-profit organisation, the three bastions that truly demonstrate the country’s biodiversity are yacón, Andean corns and Andean potatoes.

Let’s say you base your consumption choices when travelling on misguided stereotypes. You would, therefore, step up to a bar and order Guinness in Ireland, Fosters in Australia, Stoli vodka in Russia, and in Argentina a…malbec?

Every 29th of the month, households remember their ancestors by eating ñoquis. These small potato dumplings you generally eat with tomato sauce or pesto followed the Italian immigration, and have now become part of the culinary offer in the country.