Meatless in the Land of Steak

I've developed the habit of walking around in grocery stores when I'm stressed. I don't necessarily even buy anything — usually just an apple and a Diet Coke, or a container of queso cremoso (a delicious processed spread that tastes like a cross between runny cream cheese and Laughing Cow cheese wedges). But it's just enough like home that it generally calms me down.

The bigger stores are set up like any grocery store in the United States, with produce, meat and dairy around the edges and processed food in aisles in the center. The food itself is different in tiny, telling ways that never cease to fascinate me. Fruit and vegetables tend to all be grown in Argentina, so there are a lot of apples and almost no berries. (It's the beginning of fall here.) It makes me realize how much I'm used to being able to get imported fruit in any season from anywhere. Also, even the tiniest stores almost always have an entire aisle devoted to yerba mate tea leaves in dozens of varieties and flavors, and at least 10 different brands of dulce de leche. Raisins are sold with the seeds still in them, and milk is sold unrefrigerated in boxes and bags. Also, no one refrigerates eggs.

And, right now, the meat aisles in every grocery store I've been to in the last week — somewhere around five — are completely out of meat. The refrigerated meat cases are all empty, usually with white sheets over them, like furniture in an abandoned house. Sometimes there's a package or two of week-old chicken or some sausages, but most often there's just nothing.

The reason for the lack of meat is that today is the 19th day of the paro del campo, which translates literally to "strike of the countryside." For the last two and a half weeks, Argentine farmers have stopped selling food to protest an increase in export taxes. (There is no real conceptual translation into English, because the idea that every farmer in the entire country would just stop producing food is pretty inconceivable in the United States.)

To be completely honest, I don't exactly understand what's going on. But the highways all over Argentina are blocked to keep any strike-breakers from transporting food secretly, and there are daily marches throughout the country — including on the street outside the residencia — complete with banners and people banging plastic drums. I think most producers of agricultural products are participating in the strike, and the meat is just the first to run out because it has such a short shelf life. I went to find milk yesterday and I couldn't, so that might be the next to go. The newspapers are filled with pictures of rotting piles of fruit and vegetables, and I've heard that flour and soy are also being blocked.

No one seems to know how long the strike is going to last. The president, Cristina, has made several public speeches announcing her refusal to negotiate with the striking farmers, which of course made them reiterate their determination to hold out for as long as it takes. In theory, I'm in support of the right to strike, but I hope this is over soon. For one thing, sources of protein are rapidly drying up. (Nicky, when you stop hating me, you can appreciate the severity of the impending crisis!) And more importantly, grocery stores are my therapy right now.