Uruguayan Food History

Historical period

Charrúa, Chaná and Minuán societies; Hernandarias landing cattle on the Banda Oriental around 1611, which turned an empty grassland into a herd and created the whole subsequent economy; Jesuit missions and the Guaraní; Portuguese-Spanish contest over Colonia del Sacramento and Montevideo; the SALADEROS from the late eighteenth century salting beef for slave economies; independence in 1825-28; the Salsipuedes massacre of 1831; the Guerra Grande; mass European immigration from the 1870s; refrigeration and the frigoríficos from 1905, which changed what the country did with its cattle; the batllista welfare state; the beef export economy and its crises; and the culinary and wine revival since the 1990s.