AFP, Buenos Aires :
The grill master salts the cut of beef that will go into the fire, from where it heads to the table where a hungry family is gathered.
It is an age-old ritual for Argentines to get together over a jaw-dropping “asado,” but one that has grown increasingly out of the reach of many of them.
“Aside from being nourishment, beef is the center of the whole barbecue culture we Argentines have,” said Emmanuel Lapetina, president of La Pena meatpackers.
“It is the get-together; it is the Sunday barbecue; and it is the excuse to get together with the family on weekends.”
But all those heart-warming, stomach-inspiring moments of glory that people here experience with their grass-fed beef are under threat because of low purchasing power.
Despite high international prices, local inflation has seen the cost of beef surge a stunning 65 percent.
The government is keen to find a way to help more people be able to afford what feels like a birth right.
But a pricing row between the government of center-left president Alberto Fernandez and livestock producers drove the latter to declare a nine-day production halt.
“Nobody wants to stop eating ‘asado.’ It is in our culture to eat beef, that’s why so there’s so much tension when it gets very expensive,” said Lapetina.
Argentina, recognized worldwide as a top flight grass-fed beef producer, is the world’s number four beef exporter. It made 3.4 billion dollars in 2020 beef sales, with much going to Russia and China.
Locals’ love for prized cuts has actually turned beef into a hot black market commodity.
And meat producers are suspicious of government involvement. Back in 2006, when Nestor Kirchner was leading the country and Fernandez was his chief of staff, a restriction on meat exports, initially planned for six months, ended up being extended for 10 years.
