May 20

May 20 Quebracho's Nostalgia-Stuffed Empanadas

By Tess Allen

Belén Rodríguez began Quebracho Empanadas out of her homesickness for Argentina and family.

In Argentina, Sundays are for food and family. When Sunday rolls around each week, it doesn’t matter how busy your week was, or that you have a big test on Monday, or that you all just got together last Sunday. On Sundays, surrounded by loved ones and grilled meats and salads and provoleta and empanadas, the other days of the week simply don’t matter. And it’s in this world that Belén Rodríguez grew up.

Quebracho Empanadas | Minneapolis | Frozen Empanadas | The World in a Pocket

Today, Belén is the founder of Quebracho Empanadas, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based Argentinian empanada brand. When she first founded the company in 2018, she sold empanadas, other savory pies, and charcuterie at local farmers markets and pop-up shops. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, she quickly pivoted her business to focus on selling wholesale, frozen empanadas through grocery stores and co-ops—a step that anyone in the consumer packaged goods industry will tell you is far from easy, pandemic or not. But for Belén, working in the food industry runs in her blood.

Belén grew up in Rosario, a city in the central province of Santa Fe, Argentina, in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

“In Argentina, grilling is a national hobby,” Belén said, “and when you go out in the streets on a Sunday, your entire neighborhood will smell like grilled meats. But it’s not just about the grilling; it’s the act of gathering with family.”

For her family, the Sunday ritual would begin around 10 a.m. Extended family would arrive at her home, as many as 30 people some weekends, prepared to stay all day. The conversation would tune up and then, maybe an hour later, the cooking would too.

Belén’s father, Carlos, would have already pre-salted the beef by the time everyone arrived, and it would be lying on a long wooden table he’d set up in the backyard. Alongside the beef would be newspapers for starting a fire, firewood or charcoal, and knives — all perfectly laid out. The kitchen of a serious chef. The kitchen of a respected Grill Master.

“The Grill Master is the person whose house you go to,” Belén said. “It’s more mixed now, but when I was growing up, the ladies would be in the kitchen preparing salads and appetizers and gossiping, and the men would be outside grilling with the Grill Master.”

But as a kid, Belén would hang around her dad outside. “I was a bit of a pest,” she said, laughing. “I’d hang around like, ‘Teach me, Dad! Teach me!’ I wanted to be a Grill Master too.”

When Belén looks back on her childhood, it’s impossible to distinguish her memories of family from those of food. While the weeks of her childhood revolved around these family Sundays — a tradition her family back in Argentina still carries on — it runs deeper than that. The longstanding beef industry has sustained her family, like many others in Argentina, for generations.

Spanish conquistadors first brought cattle to Argentina in the 1500s, and the cattle flourished and multiplied on the fertile lowland plains, known as las pampas in Spanish. With so many cows roaming wild, beef was incredibly cheap to purchase, or free if you hunted it yourself.

When the railroad arrived in Argentina in the 19th century, Argentina began rapidly exporting beef. Because of Argentina’s climate and land, its beef was often far superior to that from Europe or the U.S. Demand skyrocketed, and jobs in the industry became abundant.

Belén’s great grandparents, Juan and Ana, left Czechoslovakia during World War I, settling in Rosario. While Ana stayed home with the couple’s children, Juan took a job at a meat processing plant — it was a job that he would ultimately keep all his life.

Ana and Juan, in Czechoslovakia, circa 1915.

Belén’s grandmother, Magdalena, grew up to marry Ángel. Ángel and his brother-in-law co-owned a meat processing plant of their own and served as beef brokers. Ángel and Magdalena’s son Marcelo and son-in-law Carlos (Belén’s father) also both joined the business. Carlos later founded the ACROS Asociaciones Cárnicas Rosario, which he still owns and operates today. Today, Belén’s sister, Luciana, is the head of finance at the family business.

Ana and Carlos, Belén’s parents, in 1975.

Belén with her husband Rob and her Nono.

Belén’s sister, Luciana, and brother-in-law with her mother, Ana.

Aside from the grilled meats her father taught her how to cook, Belén credits her grandmothers Magdalena (Belén calls her “Iaia”) and Alcira (“Abuela” or “Abu”) with teaching her how to cook.

“My dad’s mom, Abuela, was more on the pastries’ side. She was super experimental in her baking and was the one who would always bring the desserts to Sunday gatherings. She would bring cakes and flan, and come up with random recipes all the time. Iaia was more on the savory side of cooking. I wonder now if maybe it was because there was always an availability of beef around because of her husband’s job, so she had to,” Belén said, laughing. “She would make empanadas all the time. She taught me how to make the dough, and we would have those every Sunday.”

““There’s a saying in Argentina: ‘You know a beef empanada is good if the fat drips all the way down to your elbow.’ I have memories from my childhood of eating my grandmother Iaia’s empanadas, that reddish, paprika-infused juice dripping all over.””

Belén moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her Midwestern husband in 2012. For the first few years, she worked as a translator — the profession for which she went to college — at a local hospital. During that time, she’d often invite friends over on Sundays and cook for them. But every Sunday evening after everyone went home, she’d immediately pine for another Sunday.

“I soon realized that my heart belonged in the kitchen,” Belén said. In 2014, she took a job at a bakery, and then worked her way across a number of Twin Cities restaurants, including Campiello Eden Prairie and The Bachelor Farmer. She cooked pizzas in wood-fired ovens, slow-cooked meats on Francis Mallmann’s wire domes, and worked in butchering and charcuterie. She loved the cooking, and each of these jobs reminded her, in some small way, of cooking back home in Argentina. But after several years cooking in other chefs’ kitchens, Belén was ready to take all she had learned—both as a child in Argentina and in professional kitchens—and pour it into a business of her own.

Belén at The Bachelor Farmer, a James Beard Award-winning restaurant that closed in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“Quebracho was born out of extreme homesickness,” Belén said. It began as a way to see her family more. It offered her the promise of freedom to travel to Argentina more often to visit. And when she makes empanadas like Iaia used to make, she feels her family near her too.

“Quebracho is about so much more than just the empanada,” Belén said. “It’s about me being able to tell people about what I did as a child, and about who Iaia was and who Nono [Ángel] was, and about my family. I want people to experience the concept of a family Sunday in Argentina, about bringing family and friends together through food.”

Belén’s recommendation to learn more about Argentinian food

“My absolute favorite cookbook is “Food Argentina: Asado, Empanadas, Dulce De Leche, & More” by Ross Dobson and Rachel Tolosa Paz. The recipes are the most authentic I’ve seen in a book, and the first time I flipped through it, it literally made me weep with nostalgia.”

To check out Belén’s tips for serving empanadas, click here.

To get Belén’s traditional Argentinian chimichurri recipe, click here.

To learn more about Belén or to find her empanadas, visit quebrachomn.com.