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Argentine cuisine is typically European. Due to the heavy influence of Italian, Spanish, French and other European cuisines the typical Argentine diet is a variation the Mediterranean diet. Argentina is known for its asado or grilled beef where meat, including entrails, is placed on a grill and barbecued over charcoal fire. There are restaurants that serve only asado and many local restaurants always have asado on the menu.
Argentines consume large amounts of beef. While the recent economic crisis has made meat expensive for many, its price is still relatively low given its outstanding quality. Meat exports are usually regulated and the European Community has set up a quota of frozen meat imports that cannot be exceeded.
Traditional foods of the provinces such as locro hark back to the pre-Columbian period, with a reliance on maize, beans and squashes (in many places, locro is traditionally consumed only on national patriotic holidays). Another traditional food is the empanada, a circular piece of pastry folded in two around a filling (including chopped meat, olives, hard-boiled egg, potato cubes, raisins, ham and cheese, and many other variants), which can be baked or fried.
Italian staple dishes like pizza and pasta are common and many Argentines choose a simple pizza with tomato, cheese and ham, although many combinations are available. Pasta is extremely common, either simple unadorned pasta with butter or oil, or accompanied by tomato or bechamel-based sauce.
Sweets, especially dulce de leche, are popular. Dulce de leche (a dark brown fluid paste, made from milk and sugar stirred at high temperature) is an essential ingredient of cakes, and shares the place of jelly and jam at breakfast. It is used to top desserts and to fill alfajores and facturas (an alfajor consists of two round biscuits, often flavored, optionally coated with chocolate, joined by a layer of jelly; factura is the generic name for sweet baked pastry of different kinds, including but not limited to croissants and donuts.
Argentina is famous for its wine, most notably the red wine from the province of Mendoza, where weather conditions (dry, warm summers) are optimal.