And the Guiness World Record Goes to…Urugay!

Believe it or not but this country, that’s just slightly smaller than the state of Washington, cooked up 12,000 kilos of meat and is now in the Guinness World book of Records for the world’s largest Barbecue! My friends from Rotaract and I tried to get into see this amazing sight but it was sold out. The pictures I have are of the swarms of people waiting to get in, and of course I had to capture the protestors outside.

Since we could not get in to see the spectacle, my friends invited me to their place for a barbecue, not the world’s largest but we still devoured our fair share of meat. Before I go any further though, I need to explain that barbecue here is not the same as in the United States. The meat is cooked a lot differently and I tried to document it as well as possible with photos in the event that I lacked the skills to explain this tradition. Here barbecue is called “Asado”, and you always invite friends and family if you are going to have Asado. From what I’ve learned it’s a tradition that started back in the time of the gauchos of this country (gauchos is loosely defined as the cowboys of Uruguay). The meat is placed on a “parilla” which is an open grill and slightly slanted. The fire is started on the side with logs of wood and the meat is cooked in a slow heating process as you gradually push the embers from the fire underneath the parilla.

Asado also refers to the roasted meat you end up eating which, from what I have eaten so far, has always included a thick cut of the cow, morcillas (blood sausage) and parrillero (chorizo) sausages. Many of my friends and family can attest to this, before I left Arizona I was not your most avid fan of meat but I would miss out on a lot of cultural traditions if I kept that fear of meat. The saying here for all new food is, “Hay que probar” You have to taste it! So I’ve done my fair share of tasting, and I definitely eat more meat today then I did in the past but I still can’t bring myself to eat more than a taste of the blood sausage…