“Rotting Chickens, Spoiled Democracy”: Food, Consumption, and the State during the Argentine Transition to Democracy, 1985–91

This paper examines an understudied, though infamous, food scandal that shook the foundations of Argentina’s return to democracy following a brutal period of military rule. In 1986, approximately 38,000 tons of frozen chickens were imported into Argentina from Eastern Europe. The measure, part of a decades-old supply law, went relatively unnoticed until 1988, when rumors of rotting chickens exploded in the media with accusations of government corruption, illegal procurement of contaminated foodstuffs, and disregard of citizen welfare. While most studies of Argentina’s transition to democracy have focused on human rights and military trials, this paper argues that food and consumption played a vital role in shaping Argentina’s democratic return, redefining beliefs about economic well-being and the public good.

Through an analysis of the political debates and rumor mill that surrounded the Caso Mazzorín, as it was popularly known, the paper embeds the episode within broader conversations about the new limits on state regulation of markets, and the global transformations of capitalism at the end of last century. Powerful industrial food producers argued that the chickens represented material proof of the antiquated regulatory policies of the mid-twentieth century. As the scandal dragged on, public fallout from the case also reflected anxieties about the shortcomings of the new democracy itself, then on the verge of a crisis of hyperinflation. Though tabloid journalists and oppositional politicians exaggerated many features of the story, the paper concludes by demonstrating how the scandal ultimately bolstered arguments for the divestment of state controls before the full-scale implementation of neoliberal policies in the 1990s.