MEAT. It's what's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Uruguay.

It is rumored that, upon seeing Machu Picchu for the first time, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was so moved by his surroundings that he exclaimed: “This would be the perfect place for a barbeque.” Although barbeques may not seem the stuff of poetry and we can’t say with certainty what the poet was thinking as he stood among the ruins, high in the Andes Mountains, one thing is certain: barbecues, or asados, are a way of life here in the Southern Cone. And, after last Friday, it’s safe to say that no country in the world throws a better barbeque than Uruguay.

Competing with Mexico for the Guinness World Records title of “Largest Barbeque in the World,” a title it held since the 80s, Uruguay threw its own barbeque en masse, with nearly 1,000 in attendance and over 26,000 pounds of meat on a mile-long grill. As well as the dubious honor of being mentioned among other record-breakers, the National Meats Institute, the event’s organizers, hoped the occasion would generate publicity for Uruguayan beef at home and abroad. In fact, the asado created so much of a stir in Montevideo that tickets were sold out weeks in advance.

It may be a poor substitute to actually going to the asado, but if you have a minute, I invite you to view CNN’s footage of the event. It’s ok if you don’t understand everything in the video; the most important message just happens to be the theme of the day: MEAT. Vegetarians and the faint of heart, beware…