In Search of the Taste of Argentinian Football

The city of Buenos Aires alone is home to 18 soccer fields. There are another 40 on the city’s outskirts, and countless others across the rest of the country.

If there is one thing that they all have in common, it is the shared rituals of the fans on match days: getting together for a bite to eat before or after the game, generally in bars or open-air venues around the stadiums, to eat the traditional fast food that is Argentinian street fare.

The star dish on any menu is choripán (a kind of chorizo sandwich), served with chimichurri sauce from food vans parked at stadium entrances. The smoke from the fat sizzling on the coals is like a tribal call, with an effect on the fans that is as mesmerizing as incense at Mass.

Inside the stadiums, each stand has its own official buffet. Once inside, in the better-equipped stadiums, fans can also eat choripanes (chorizo sandwiches), panchos (hot dogs) and burgers. During the game, vendors walk among the spectators, selling coffee and sodas.

This tradition goes back to the social life of immigrants in the early 20th century, when soccer first leaped to popularity. It was around that time that the first pizza canchera appeared. The name is derived from the word cancha, meaning soccer field, and the pizzas were traditionally sold at soccer games out of containers placed on trestle tables.

Served in slices (just like fainá, an Argentinian flatbread) and eaten on the go or standing at a communal snack bar, pizza canchera was made with tomato sauce, spices, garlic, and oil, but no cheese. Pizza and soccer have been inextricably linked ever since.

No soccer fan—except perhaps the more seasoned among them—would deny that soccer-stand choripanes and burgers are more about tradition than edibility. 

Gourmet trends have yet to reach the stadiums’ street stalls—and much less their buffets—and so the main beneficiaries of the rituals connecting food and soccer are the local food stalls and bars. And if it’s a picada (a kind of appetizer), a milanesa (veal escalope) or a lomito completo (steak sandwich) that you want, there's no better place for it than in these local establishments.

Inspired by the old taverns of yesteryear, many pizzerias are decked out in soccer regalia. Team pennants, T-shirts signed by legends of the game, photos, and newspaper cuttings on the walls show their allegiance. The pizzerias Banchero (La Boca), Angelín (Villa Crespo), Yatasto (La Paternal), and El Globito (Parque Patricios) are well-known for being filled with local fans on match weekends.

The sale of alcohol is forbidden in Argentinian stadiums. Improvised mobile stalls selling cans of beer, however, are a common sight on nearby streets.

Another classic of eat-on-the-go soccer gastronomy is caramelized nuts, also made and sold from mobile stalls: an essential snack to keep you going before you stuff your face later.