The World Cup in My Tummy: Paraguay and Uruguay

David Swidler is eating, drinking, and cooking his way through all 32 World Cup countries, much like he does at his site cookingvssports.com.

Paraguay and Uruguay don't want the notoriety of their flashy South American neighbors--they just need a ball and a field. You can have your Maradonas, your Ronaldos, and your worldwide recognition. These two countries are a bunch of blue-collar grinders who'd rather be drinking a beer under the hood of their car than posing for a team photo.

So while Chile is making their wine and Brazil is dancing in their fancy dress parades, the R-guays are eating their steak sandwiches and drinking their killer tea.

The national dish of Uruguay is called a chivito, which is a foreign-ey way of saying "steak sandwich." The chivito is served with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, mozzarella cheese, and olives. If you want, you can add ham or bacon, however, that's essentially a South American Double Down.

When I started searching for a Paraguarían meal, the ingredient that came up the most was yerba mate, which is a small plant that gets turned into a tea. But before you thrust your pinkie up in the air and walk out of the room, I'm just calling it tea because I don't know any better.

There are several type of drinks that one can make from yerba mate, and all of them could KILL YOU. Although it is used as a medicinal drink, every once in a while someone comes out with a study that says it's maybe possible that yerba mate could have a very slight chance of giving you cancer.

I went to Latin Merchants to pick out a box of yerba mate and was immediately drawn to this colorful box. (Look, it's a parrot!) My first thought? Maybe this MURDER TEA will taste like Fruit Loops.  Wow, was I wrong, it had a very strong smoky taste. The kind of flavor that you find in the real South America, not some on some Argentinean European-style boulevard.

So as you watch the South American teams continue to dominate the tournament, keep an eye out for Paraguay and Uruguay, two countries who just wanna git-r-done.