<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

After seeing someone else's recent posting, I'm inspired to buckle down and do my own summary.  I spent three weeks in late January-early February, flying and driving around the country.  Regarding communication, I only studied Spanish for 1 year in high school many years ago so my vocabulary is highly limited, but without exception I found Argentines to be very friendly and patient.

I absolutely agree that knowledge of celiac disease is more widespread in Argentina, making ordering in the nicer restaurants much easier.  Just saying "soy celiaco" and reminding them I can't eat anything made with flour usually went very smoothly.  Argentina is very much meat-and-potatoes country; every restaurant has at least a couple of grilled offerings (beef, fish, chicken, pork, lamb or other game), and these were uniformly superb.  Entrees are usually accompanied by mashed potatoes or French fries.  I rarely saw anything else on the menu that was deep-fried, I often felt comfortable ordering the fries.  I usually jumped to order something else like spinach or pureed pumpkin when the opportunity presented itself.  Locro is a stew based on corn and beans which I found at a couple of places specializing in regional cuisine.  Salads are OK but highly uniform throughout the country, becoming rather monotonous for me.

Snacks/desserts require a little perseverance.  Good quality fruits and vegetables are widely available for snacking.  Yogurt is also widely available, but most of what I saw used modified food starch; since I wasn't sure it was GF, I bought the drinkable yogurt.  Fruit cocktail is available almost everywhere as a dessert or afternoon snack, and it's definitely a step up from what we usually see in the States.  Flan is also a very common dessert, much lighter and more delicate than any other I've had.  Many bakeries carry merengue cookies, and I even found a few carrying more elaborate merengue concoctions with whipped cream or dulce de leche (caramel) fillings.  Ice cream is very high-quality, with many artisanal producers; some national chains such as Freddo and Veneziane (sp?) even indicate which flavors are GF.

Breakfast was definitely more challenging than lunch or dinner.  It wasn't a problem at the bed-and-breakfast where I stayed in Buenos Aires because I communicated my needs in advance to my hostess, who bought some GF bread.  Breakfast in Argentina is usually Continental, so I stocked up on vacuum-packed breads, cakes and cookies before leaving Buenos Aires.  That was a wise move, because the selection was much better there than anywhere else.  Smaller towns often have no health food stores, and even some of the larger ones with a store or two sometimes carry no GF products or have a very spotty selection.  If you do get stuck, many supermarkets and even corner stores carry rice cakes and rice crackers, sometimes made from brown rice.  In the south I discovered that some lodgings feature enormous "Patagonian" or buffet breakfasts, which are well worth the few extra dollars; if you wait til 9:00 or 9:30 to eat, you may not even want to have lunch.

As far as beverages, wine is quite good but usually sold only by the bottle, which can be a problem for just one or two people unless you don't mind bringing the bottle back to your room.  Hard cider is delicious and easily available; a large 750ml bottle was not difficult for me to finish since it's no stronger than beer, and the price is cheap (less than a dollar in supermarkets).  BTW, tap water is drinkable everywhere in the country.

I would definitely consider going back to see other parts of Argentina.  I hope these tips encourage someone else to take the plunge!

Paul
Brooklyn, NY

* Visit the Celiac Web Page at www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html *