Many moons ago, 9 years to be more precise, there was a brief blip on the local food writing scene with a blog called NoshBA. The young man who ran it and I only had one contact, when he sent me an email to assure me that he wasn’t encroaching on my territory, because he was going to be writing by and for young people and their point of view, rather than from the perspective of old people like me. That went over well. The blog was very, very short lived – a little over a year. Experience outlasts the callowness of youth and all that.

He often found interesting places to “grab a bite”, but I was more often amused by his, let’s call it, lack of understanding… be it about food or culture. I recall in particular, what may have been my first exposure to the whole “trigger words” and their ilk, when he went on a diatribe about the official name of our neighboring country, “República Oriental de Uruguay”, its official name. Paragraphs were devoted to the insensitivity and racism of using the term “oriental”. Clueless, however, that “oriental” in Spanish, not English, is simply the word for “eastern”, so the name is “Eastern Republic of Uruguay”. So let’s just say the title of this post is a tongue in cheek trigger tribute….

So, as always, we’ll start with a “money shot” – the finished “Locro Uruguayo”, the latest installment in our “L Word” series….

As with many stews, and as we’ve seen with past locros, there are a lot of ingredients, and often, a lot of meats. Here we’ve got roughly equal quantities of beef, pork, and tripe (I’m not a big tripe fan, but I resolved to do this right), along with a couple of cured chorizos. All cut up into small pieces.

Next wave… 3 small potatoes, 3 small sweet potatoes, 3 tomatoes, 3 slices of squash (butternut), an onion, a few cloves of garlic, salt and pepper, and dried basil and oregano. Again, chopped up.

And, finally, roughly equal amounts of corn, par-cooked white beans and chickpeas.

Brown the meats in a splash of oil, no more than a tablespoon or so, enough to prevent them from sticking. When lightly browned, add the chopped onions, garlic, and tomato, and cook until the onions are softened.

Add all the vegetables and the seasonings, and then top with water.

Bring to a simmer, cover the pot, and cook for 90 minutes, until the meat is nice and tender. In retrospect, I think I’d have kept the white beans back, since they’re already par-cooked, and added them in maybe during the last 20 minutes or so, to absorb flavor. As it is, they more or less fell apart. Then again, that may be the idea, because it gives a sort of creamy texture to the locro.

Dish it up, and enjoy! I even liked the tripe, which cooked this long, melted into a soft texture, rather than the chewiness that it so often has. It might also have helped that I cut it up into really small pieces….