Brazilians dig 76 tons of buried meat for barbecue

Dozens of families in Rio de Janeiro spent the weekend savoring barbecues made from meat they dug from an Army land on Friday. The meat was buried after the Brazilian Customs agency determined it had been imported illegally. As Army trucks left the place where the 76 tons of meat had been buried, locals started digging the boxes of meat. According to some of the people who ate the meat, interviewed by the local media, the meat was still frozen when it was dug out of the hole, and had an expiry date of October 2007.

Several families in the region of Albuquerque, in the outskirts of Rio, promoted barbecues during the weekend. The local store manager reported having sold three times as much beer as normal, to help quench the thirst of the barbecuers.

The local authorities explained that burying products that are imported illegally is a normal procedure taken with several different types of goods that are confiscated on a daily basis. The meat was imported from Algeria, but the importer abandoned the cargo. Local media reported that so far nobody has fallen ill from eating the dug meat.