Eating, Drinking, Paying. The Price of Food in Montevideo in the Late Colonial Period

Abstract

This paper gathers information on the diet of the people of Montevideo. It puts forward some hypotheses regarding the caloric intake of the plebeian and non-elite social groups, introduces two Laspeyres indexes of food prices for Montevideo in 1760-1810, analyses the movements of food prices in Montevideo in this period and compares the case of Montevideo with neighbouring cities.

De artículos de primera necesidad a necesidades básicas insatisfechas. Una mirada al proyecto de bienestar en el siglo xx uruguayo a través del debate sobre el costo de vida

“…Sin embargo, la cns mantuvo sus funciones tradicionales durante el periodo y siguió asegurando la distribución de la mercadería por medio de diversos tipos de locales. En 1980, había 16 puestos móviles y 27 fijos en la capital y 19 en el interior del país 51 .…”

Prices and Living Standards during the Age of Revolutions: The Río de la Plata between 1772 and 1830

“…They were created through an examination of the evidence provided by both secondary and primary sources. For Buenos Aires, we considered the consumption baskets published by Johnson (1990), Cuesta (2009), Santilli (2020a), and Guzmán and Schmit (2020); for Montevideo, we took into account those elaborated by Moraes and Thul (2018) and Moraes (2020). Additionally, we reviewed the books of daily expenses of the Men's Hospital of Buenos Aires and the Charity Hospital of Montevideo for the whole year 1830, and the monthly food expenses of the workers in a suburban farm in Buenos Aires between 1816 and 1817.…”

“…The Río de la Plata economic space was not exempt from this discussion. Although it had the pioneering work of Johnson (1990) and Cuesta (2009) for Buenos Aires, new research has expanded the list of cities and historical periods analyzed (Arroyo Abad et al, 2012;Gelman and Santilli, 2018;Guzmán, 2018 and2021;Santilli, 2020aSantilli, , 2020bSchmit, 2020;Guzmán and Schmit, 2020;Djenderedjian and Martirén, 2015;Frid, 2017;Frid, Djenderedjian and Martiren, 2020;Moraes and Thul, 2018;Moraes, 2020).…”

“…Baked bread (first quality): 1772-1810 and 1814:Moraes (2020). 1816-1826: Actas del Extinguido Cabildo de Montevideo, Volumes 13 to 18.…”

Changes in food consumption from an agricultural-based economy to industrialisation: Uruguay (1900–70)

“…This fact makes it possible for much of the domestic demand for food to be supplied by domestic production – almost all food originating from livestock and a high proportion from agricultural products. In particular, beef was available all over the territory and had a predominant role in the rural and urban diet, at least from the eighteenth century (see for instance Moraes, 2020 and Fournier, 1936).…”