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 Uruguay's
Mercado Del Puerto
by Steven Raichlen
"Where's the beef?" asked a popular
TV commercial a few years back. Where, indeed! Virtually everyone
I know in North America is cutting back on meat consumption
or eliminating it entirely.
How different life is south of the equator, where meat remains
the bedrock of the Latin American diet. This truth became
apparent to me the moment I landed in Montevideo, Uruguay.
"Beef is cheaper here than chicken," explained my
taxi driver, pointing out the profusion of butcher shops (one
every couple blocks) on the way to my hotel. During my stay,
the Montevideans I met proudly admitted to eating meat between
10 and 12 times a week.
If this seems like a cultural flashback, just a stroll through
the old quarter of Montevideo proves it out. Studebakers,
panel trucks, even Model-T Fords ply the tree-lined avenues
and cobblestone streets. Laundry hangs on the wrought-iron
balconies of moldering eighteenth-century townhouses. Here,
in the old quarter of the capital of the smallest nation in
South America, time seems to have stood still.
Time has surely stood still at the Mercado del Puerto. Montevideans
flock to this once-stately covered market for a carnivorian
orgy of grilled steaks, sausages, roasts, roulades, and organ
meats.
Built in 1868, the Mercado del Puerto is a soaring temple
of girders and glass. Access to the block-long market is gained
through grandiose iron gates, and a three-story-high skylight,
blackened with smoke and age, towers over an ornate clock
tower whose hands are frozen at 4:30 p.m. The dilapi-dated
stone floor gives the Mercado a slightly seedy feel-which
is what a proper market should have. And one thing's for sure:
The beef is definitely here.
Follow your Nose
How
to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book
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