A Year in Uruguay

Wednesday morning at 4 am I left Montevideo in order to visit a frigorífico in Paso de los Toros. We arrived at the meat packing plant just after sunrise, around eight in the morning. We changed into white pants, white tunics, white rubber boots, and blue hardhats before entering the plant. In the entryway, everyone scrubbed their boots and washed their hands before going into the packing room.

The plant was much smaller than the typical Uruguayan frigorífico and it was designed for processing liebre (hare) and later expanded to sheep. The day we were there they were packing lamb for sale in Africa.

I'd never been to a slaughterhouse so I didn't know what to expect. The part of the plant we were in was like a big busy butchershop-- very clean, very bright-- meat being cut, packaged, vacuum sealed, and boxed

See a short video:

Labels: food and drink, interior, rural, Tacuarembó, Uruguay, video

Paso de los Toros is a small town located near the center of Uruguay on the Río Negro in the departamento of Tacuarembó. The locally popular grapefruit soda, Paso de los Toros, originated there. A larger-than-life bull statue on Ruta 5 marks the entrance to the town.










The local Texaco, like many gas stations in Uruguay's interior carried a wide variety of goods, including boots and 20 inch knives for the gauchos. I liked this display at the back of the station with motor additives and horse saddles on the same shelves.

Labels: interior, Tacuarembó, Uruguay