Don’t Cry For Meat; Argentina

WARNING: Vegetarians, please stop reading now!

If you’re a carnivore, then Argentina is the place for you.
Argentines eat truckloads of meat, resembling an evolutionary throwback to some sort of caveman diet. They eat on average 60 kilograms of beef a year per capita, working out at 165 grams of beef every single day. Remember, this figure DOES NOT include chicken or lamb!

Remarkably, meat ingestion has decreased over the years from some astronomical level. Meat is always cooked the Argentine way – the Argentine barbecue, or the Asador. Salads are an optional extra, always served first before the main meal and eaten on their own, so they do not spoil the immaculate presentation of char-grilled protein on a plate that can barely contain it.

The sizes of the steaks are enormous and I reckon it takes me at least a week to crap out each steak. To satisfy my rabid curiosity, I asked a waiter in a parilla steak house just how much steak his restaurant went through a day.
‘¿Cuantos kilos carnes en un dia?’ I asked
His answer was ‘trescientos’ – Three Hundred!
Judging by the serious look on his face, he wasn’t joking. If he spoke English, I’m sure he would have said ‘And how would you like your entire cow cooked, Señor Gringo?’

So let me work this out. If one restaurant in Argentina char-grills over two tonnes (2.1, to be precise) of steak per week, this accumulates to 110 tonnes of steak a year. Just one steak restaurant in Argentina, of which there must be millions. I was flabbergasted when I contemplated how many dead cows that translated to. Once the bovine beasts reach cow heaven, their presence is not lost on this earth, as the enormous steak diet translates into a colossal range of leather goods for sale. I concluded from this large collection of evidence there must be some rough-looking colons in Argentina and stomach surgeons were in short supply.

I understood the steak addiction though, as the beef is outstanding – it is the best steak I’d ever devour. Every single time. It is the way meat is cooked that contributes to the flavour. Steak is cooked over hot burning wood coals, creating an appetizing taste. When served, plates are devoid of any other food material, creating a contrast of flame-roasted tenderloin against barely-visible edge of white serving plate. This creates a challenge – you against the steak. If there is any resemblance of meat left on the plate, the meat won. It never wins with me, but it is a close call some days.

However, the parilla isn't solely devoted to bife de chorizo (sirloin) and bife de lomo (tenderloin) steak. Whole lamb and chicken is split into flat lamb and flat chicken, roasted on open fires burning with a gentle wood flame. Parilla chefs left the roasting carcass on the slow cooking fire from mid-afternoon, ready for carnivores that night. For some astounding reason, chefs also cook meat at the shite end of the protein spectrum – that offal crap, including morcilla (black pudding), chinchulines (intestines) and riñones (kidneys).

Regardless, if you spend lunch or dinner at a parilla, you definitely need a siesta to digest the 900 gram monster you have just devoured. Sometimes, you might need a siesta worthy of hibernation.
Salud!