My Rather Sad Breakfast, or Fuck You "Smart Food Company SRL" and Fuck You "Industria Argentina".

Before going into the topic of just how sadly cursed this land is with its current populationⁱ, let's delve a moment on the glory of nature itself :

For lo these many years now I've been trying to find salmon roe in Argentina. Because I like it, and because it really isn't that much a big deal - except in rural areas, of course. At first I just made a point of looking through the menus of the sushi places (there's at least, and I say this in all mathematical seriousness, AT LEAST one thousand sushi places in Buenos Aires). None had it. Then I started to ask specifically. None had it. Not even the ones managed and attended by ethically Asian peopleⁱⁱ. So I moved on to the great 1900s style Groceries they have here, with manned counters and separately manned cash register, idle fastidiosity and complicated social rituals. NONE HAD IT.

So I put it on the spylist, and after two whole years the damned thing was located. I bought some, and as time permitted one fine morning - today - happily proceeded to make myself an omelette to try it out. Here it is :

That... doesn't look quite right, does it ?

It isn't right. Let's read labels together. Front first :

And then back :

See that last line where it says "Aderezo a base de algas marina con sabor pescado" ? Yeah, that's right : they're glycerin bubbles marinated in sodium benzoate. "Conservar Refrigerado" for no fucking purpose whatsoever except maybe that you don't notice, like the castrato scratching an imaginary pair of balls.

See that line where it says "Industria Argentina" ? Yea, that's exactly right : these idioti che non sono altro would rather fuck it up than do it right! It costs about the same to put proper roe in a jar as it costs to try and fake it! Leaving aside the production costs, it's infinitely more expensive to market shitty ersatz in place of the real thingⁱⁱⁱ. Except, of course, to a population of congenital idiots - hence the first note.

Let it be noted in passing that I've also tried to find Maraschino, the liquour, for just as long. Every other parrillada shithole in this overgrown neoplasm of a village has a bottle of Liquore Strega aka Whore Street "for prestige" somewhere on a top shelf^iv, yet the comparatively much more popular clear anise alternative is literally unheard of. It is a particular character-building exercise to inquire with the pretentious owner of pretentious liquor stores here, only to discover they have no fucking clue as of anything, to back any of that pretense up. Time and time and time and again.^v

Smart Food Company ? No such thing ; not in this country. Argentines are congenitally incapable of smarts, or for that matter the first inklings of common sense. To reiterate : ceterum censeo Argentina esse delendam.

1. Which will hopefully be exterminated within my lifetime - let me know if I can in any way help ? [↩]
2. In fairness, it's pretty unsafe to patronize any other sort of commercial entreprise in this country. [↩]
3. In no small part because you get articles such as this one :

   SMART FOOD COMPANY S.R.L. - 05/02/2014

   Por escritura del 30/1/2014, folio 13, Registro 1672, Mariana Fazzino, del 10/3/1974,
   Licenciada en Tecnología de los Alimentos, DNI 23.864.833, CUIT 27‑23864833‑0, domiciliada en Avenida del Libertador 5603, 4º “B”, CABA y
   Juan Ramón Diaz, del 12/5/1977, comerciante, DNI 25.847.788, CUIT 20‑25847788‑0, domiciliado en Eduardo Muñiz 793, Ituzaingo, Provincia de Buenos Aires, ambos argentinos y casados, constituyeron “SMART FOOD COMPANY S.R.L.”.
   PLAZO: 99 años.
   SEDE: Avenida del Libertador 5603, 4º piso departamento “B”, CABA

   Fuck you both, retards! [↩]

4. And occasionally have the good humour to prevent customers from ordering the dubious contents of the antique decor, untouched since grammy passed back in 1963. [↩]
5. Eventually, someone did produce a bottle. It had the correct faint-graphite markings on porous white for a label. It turned out to be swill, undrinkable, I poured it out in the gutter after having one taste of it that I then regretted for an hour. Closer to rotten gasoline than any sort of liqueur. [↩]