A truck, dressed in the uniform of Quilmes cerveza, is unloading at the kerbside. Six half cows swinging from hooks. Red meat from a beer wagon.

Quintessential Argentine cuisine.

One stevedore lifts a carcass and staggers from the gloom, lowers it onto another unfortunate’s shoulder. Who braces himself, knees almost buckling, thence makes his way through a chicane of trip-hazard sleeping dogs. Through into the back door of the carniceria and the butcher’s slab. (You have to suspect that he’s yet to complete his ‘manual handling’ course).

Three entire Herefords for a small pueblo…. well it is in carnivorous Argentina, where hunting the vegetarian option is a contrarian’s sport.

The Chronicler