A Trip to Mar del Plata 189 



in the land. The Argentines are meat-eaters, like 

 the Britons and like the people of the United States. 

 Meat is abundant and cheap. According to recent 

 statistics there are in the country for every man, woman, 

 and child four beeves, eleven sheep, and one pig, not 

 to speak of poultry. The crops of grain are heavy. 

 In 1878 only enough wheat and corn was produced to 

 supply domestic necessities. To-day Buenos Aires is 

 one of the greatest wheat-markets in the world. Fruits 

 and vegetables can be grown in perfection, but market- 

 gardening, except in the immediate vicinity of the 

 larger municipalities, has not been hitherto pursued 

 so extensively as will no doubt be the case in the future. 

 A great deal of the fruit on sale in the fruit-shops in 

 Buenos Aires at the time I was there had been imported 

 from Italy, Portugal, and Spain. There is no good 

 reason for this. The fare of the laboring classes in the 

 country is simply prepared, and there is more boiling 

 than baking. One of the favorite dishes common in 

 all Spanish-speaking lands is the pucker o, consisting 

 of boiled meat and vegetables, corresponding to what 

 in New England I have heard called a "boiled dinner.' 

 It is not half-bad even from the standpoint of a culinary 

 critic. Beans, frijoles, as in Central America, play an 

 important role in Argentina, as they do also in Boston. 

 Bread is baked as in southern Europe, and there is 

 always more crust in proportion to the sponge in the loaf 

 than is the case in England or the United States. This 

 is healthy, as it ought to be. Boiled Indian meal, 

 good old-fashioned 'mush,' or 'hasty pudding,' is 

 a standard dish. In the matter of drinks the inhabitants 

 of the states of Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina are 

 singular in their addiction to the yerba mate or Para- 

 guay-tea. The plant is the Ilex paraguayensis, a low 



