By Louise Egan
FRAY BENTOS, Uruguay (Reuters) – The cows grazing
peacefully in the pastures of Fray Bentos don’t know how lucky
they are.
Their ancestors were herded into the Uruguayan town’s meat
packing plant by the hundreds to be slaughtered, chopped,
pulverized and packed into cans only to reappear as corned beef
on a dinner plate in London.
Those days are long gone and all that’s left of the giant
factory, maker of the world-famous Fray Bentos meat pies, is
some crumbling old buildings with peeling paint and broken
windows.
The cows may be happy but the people in the unassuming town
of 22,000 people northwest of Montevideo miss those days when
their company town was abuzz with activity.
The beef plant closed in 1979 after 117 years in operation
but at its peak 4,000 workers from 60 countries kept it
humming, their children gorged on beef daily and the British
owners held glitzy garden parties.
To relive that heady past when Fray Bentos fed the Allies
in World War Two and was dubbed “one of the largest kitchens of
the free world” some local history buffs have created what they
call the museum of the industrial revolution.
“It’s like a fairy tale for our children,” said Olma
Villalba, whose grandmother was head housekeeper at the
so-called casa grande, the British bosses’ mansion.
“This place is the lifeblood of the town. Everything still
revolves around the old meatpacking plant,” she said of the
now-decrepit “Anglo” neighborhood that once encompassed the
state-of-the-art factory, a port, worker housing and a school.
Tourists have been able to tour the cobwebbed grounds since
1990 and in March 2005 the museum itself opened its doors.
THE COW’S ‘MOO’
A two-headed calf in a jar, dated 1938, is one of the first
displays to greet visitors to the museum.
Another cheerful exhibit shows the production chain from
cow to OXO beef extract with colorful arrows depicting how even
hooves, tendons and thyroid glands were transformed into some
commercial product.
“What is the only part of the cow that wasn’t used?” the
interactive panel asks, urging the visitor to push a button to
hear the answer: a cow’s moo.
Fertilizer was made from animal blood, bonemeal and the
contents of their stomachs in the site that is now the museum,
tour guide Diana Cerrilla explains.
But tourists who signed the guest book don’t seem daunted
by the sordid details.
“This museum makes me hungry. The first thing I’m going to
do when I get home is get a corned beef sandwich,” says one
typical entry signed “U.S.”
Fray Bentos became synonymous with comfort food for
millions of Europeans who were raised on the tinned meats
during times of war and instability. Britain’s Prince Charles
fondly reminisced on the Fray Bentos cuisine of his childhood
in a visit to Uruguay years ago.
The plant exported 16 million tins of corned beef in 1943
and during the war slaughtered some 12,000 animals a day,
including pig, rabbit, chicken and turkey.
Everything from frozen sides of beef to steak and vegetable
pie with puff pastry was shipped from Fray Bentos to the
world’s pantries. And not only foreigners squeal in delight at
the kitschy labels for some 200 subproducts showcased here.
Villalba licks her lips recalling how her parents brought
home loads of beef from the company store. “As you can imagine,
we all have high cholesterol now,” she laughs.
The factory was built in 1863 by a German chemist who
patented beef extract and in 1924 came under British ownership
and was called “Anglo del Uruguay.”
The Fray Bentos brand name is now owned by Campbell Soup
Co. and the products made elsewhere.
The museum’s name is inspired by the original steam engine
that powered the plant and transformed Fray Bentos as it
transformed Britain in the industrial revolution. The rusty
turbines sit intact in a dank room full of pigeon droppings.
After the world wars, Uruguay could not keep up with the
technological changes overtaking Europe and the plant began to
lose money. The owners sold it in 1970 to the Uruguayan state
which shut it down a few years later, spelling the demise of
Fray Bentos.
“We built this museum using our hearts, our creativity and
recycling materials out of deep respect for our parents, our
grand parents and our great grandparents who labored here,”
said museum director Rene Boretto.
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