potatoes with mojo
Guachinche It sounds like a harmless but annoying variety of an Andean flea ("these guachinches are killing me"), like a dark billiard room in Caracas ("let's go pal guachinche, pana") or even a sinuous left winger with a colossal gallop and labyrinthine dribbling. But it's something else...
It is something very concrete and very defined geographically on an island, Tenerife and, more specifically, in a handful of towns in the north: La Matanza, La Victoria, La Orotava, Santa Úrsula. An effective low cost and slow food version of island gastronomy.
The guachinche is, originally, the place where the farmers of the island sold the wine of their own harvest, accompanied by traditional dishes of simple elaboration, as a top . Thus, the guachinche was born as a home restaurant, with no more decoration or infrastructure than a handful of tables in the garage or on the terrace of the country house.
They usually start in November and remain open until the wine runs out, a date that depends on the voracity of the customers and the bounty of the harvest, but seldom last past april . They are infernally difficult to find, since they are lost houses in some town up the mountain.
The choice of the dish is simple, since there are usually no more than three specialties chosen from the traditional menu of Tenerife farmers: salad, chickpeas, pork meat, white cheese, rabbit in salmorejo. In the most refined guachinches, the letter is written on a cardboard of tobacco and the table can be a coil of telephone cables. Checkered or paper tablecloth. Price around 7-10 euros per person . The family looks after and cooks, which in this way gets a bonus with which to complete the income from agriculture and construction. Obviously, do not ask for an invoice to deduct or show a credit card.
This The lice , in La Matanza, which is run by an old man who announces every year that this year will be his last and that he is retiring, but always ends up answering the call in November; Argeo House , in Santa Úrsula, which in a month and a half is capable of venting its good 7,000 liters of wine. Others: The Cubans (in Orotava), the Civil Guard , in Jandía, near La Laguna. Apart from young people looking for cheap food, it is common to see early-fifties retirees on wine rounds on Friday afternoons.
Some have unmistakable names, hyper-practical, loaded with topographical knowledge, such as: In front of the Shell, in reference to the gas station whose views will accompany your hangover. Another detail that makes them fascinating places is their invisibility on Google. Having said that, we would like to be able to offer you an updated list of guachinches from Tenerife. If you know of any, leave us a comment.