CARNIVORES

You know how most of the world eats healthier than Americans in general? That's true, but there are some places that defy preconceived notions as to what makes up a healthy diet. I think most people would expect us to be eating only a bit of meat now and again here in Uruguay. But they would be wrong. Quite wrong. The word CARNE in Spanish means meat, whence comes our word CARNIVORE—and that's completely accurate in the case of Uruguayans. They eat A LOT of meat.



We went to the Old City on Saturday with the students and the other onsite family, our back-at-home-neighbors Lynette and Lee Penya and their kids, to look around the flea market, to see the port area, and to eat dinner, OK, well, to eat meat. The place is huge, and stall after stall sells huge braziers of grilled meat: several kinds of sausage, pork, chicken, beef, etc. [A tip: if you order the grilled meat for two, more than four people can eat it; if you order the grilled meat for four, then half of our class can eat on it and have leftovers. Mostly this is because there's a whole lot of meat, but it's also because some of the meat is, shall we say, less commonly consumed in the United States, like tripe, which is yummy stomach lining, and which was in the pile of leftovers.]




A funny conversation happened between the girls and Sophie Penya, who is three years old and LOVES anything sweet. She saw Katie, Krista, Sarah Sims, and me eating (or at least trying) what looked like delicious chocolate cake but was in fact blood sausage, and she wanted some. Sarah told her that it wasn't cake, but Sophie wanted to try it. She took a couple of bites and then said something like "I've had better cake." I can imagine! J

[Also pictured are Katie and Krista "Fear Factor-ing" some blood sausage.]