Local residents are very patriotic about their home cooking and national gastronomic traditions. Valuable things, objects and notebooks with recipes are hereditary here. It is impossible to imagine that residents can prepare their own food from frozen or stale products.

For the local cuisine and residents, the main thing is the taste, and the presence of excessive calories does not greatly disturb them. In Uruguay, they eat a lot of high-calorie food, including bakery products, the potatoes so familiar to South America and, of course, a lot of meat and desserts.

There are actually no breakfasts in Uruguay. Local residents drink a lot of tea and go to work.

But during the lunch meal and for dinner in the evening Uruguayans eat a lot, densely, and meats and desserts make essential part of it.

Uruguayans adore wine; every meal is accompanied with wine. And such frequent use of alcohol is considered the norm. And although Uruguay occupies an honorable fourth place in the production of wine, it practically does not go away for export. In total, there are about 300 wineries here, and they are owned by families and farms whose ancestors started this business more than 200 years ago. Taking into consideration the successful location of the country, the state has a unique and very convenient climate for winemaking.

Uruguayan vineyards are largely obliged to the Basques, who are fighting for their independence in Spain. They brought the most popular variety of grapes – tannah.

Uruguay produces a unique type of wine and even those with diabetes can drink it. This wine, which produces the winery Vinos de la Cruz, does not contain sugar.

Uruguayan meat is considered to be the best in South America. The best dish of home cooking in Uruguay is asado a la parilla. In fact, this is the main dish of Uruguay. Any meat can be used for this dish. The sauce of salmuera gives special taste of meat.

Also locals adore civito. It's a sandwich with meat, boiled eggs and vegetables. It is properly eaten with a fork and knife.

Milanesa dish is a meat dish, consisting of veal, beef and chicken. Each piece of meat is covered with whipped egg, as well as seasoned with sauces and herbs, breaded in breadcrumbs.

Puchero soup is a pot, in which beef, vegetables are mixed, among which are corn, potatoes, and a host of all kinds of spices.

Uruguay, of course, is exclusively a "meat" country, so it is very rare to meet fish dishes. At the same time, there are restaurants on the coast of the country that specialize in seafood dishes, mainly on the basis of tourists and guests of the country. There's a great selection of Atlantic fish, octopus and salmon.

The brightest homemade dish of seafood is Corvina-a-la-parilla. It is prepared from fish on coals with vegetables.

Vegetarian cuisine here is rare, but still it can be found! So, vegetarians are advised to try kapelletikaruzo. This is pelmeni in mushroom sauce. As a filling they use spinach with cheese. Sometimes people adapt this dish to local requirements and add meat.

You can also try a dish called polenta; in fact, it is maize porridge. The motherland of this dish is Italy. In Uruguay, people add tomato sauce and cheese to it.

Faina is a mixture of cornstarch and milk; it is baked in the oven. This meal is like a pizza.

Uruguayans adore a pot pie with a filling of vegetables. Among vegetables they use spinach and various kinds of beets. Also in the filling they add eggs, garlic, onions, cheese.

Uruguay is famous for its dairy industry and cheese, which is in no way inferior to European patterns. The cheese here is represented by a variety of kinds. You can find mozzarella, parmesan and many others.

The locals adore desserts and, as mentioned above, do not like to count calories. So, here you can find pastries with stuffing, pies, mousses, cakes, etc. Everything is very tasty and consists of natural ingredients.

The most delicious and popular dessert is, of course, dulce de leche. In the correct translation – it's milk candy. This wonderfully tasty dish is a caramel cream. It is eaten as a separate dessert, and in combination with others. They even use it as fillings for cakes, pastries. In general, in the home cuisine of Uruguay there are a lot of various desserts, all of them are very tasty and unusual.

Mate has a special place among drinks. People drink it all day long and even at night. Mate is prepared from leaves and young twigs of Paraguayan holly. They are flooded with water and heated to 80 degrees. After that people drink this stuff during the day from the thermos. There are many kinds of Mate, including its cold form and with the addition of other ingredients.

On a hot day in addition to Mate Uruguayans drink various kinds of freshly squeezed juices with ice. Except for mate and freshly squeezed juices Uruguayans like to drink soda of local brand called salus.