Festival Mundial del Choripán

On Saturday we went to the first 'Festival Mundial del Choripán' in Parque Sarmiento.

A choripán is a sandwich (pan) with a chorizo (chori; Argentine-style chorizo, not Spanish chorizo; it is a coarse meat grill sausage made from pork or sometimes beef, quite similar to German Rostbratwurst).

Choripán Argentino

The festival has been organized by the municipality and apparently they were a little overwhelmed with their unforeseen success. Usually there are a few choripán carros in Parque Sarmiento anyway. For the festival they set up a stage in the middle of the park half way down Av Deodora Roca. And they gathered a few choripán carros on aforementioned Roca. There were really only about 10 carritos, definitely not more than that. I saw them build the stage and I saw some of the carros gathering, when I did my daily run through the park around 1100. Was a little confused, because all of the guys were like super calm and relaxed. Nobody was in a hurry. Actually it seemed like any other day in the park, only that they were building the stage.

When the four of us got to the actual Festival Mundial del Choripán at proper Argentine dinner time (i.e. 2300) the park was full of people and cars. I would have guessed there were easily 10000 people there. And ... no food!... The queues in front of the 10 carros (Cronica says, there should have been 60!) where about 100 meters long (each, that is). Loads of people wanted to buy their choripán and waited for literally hours. So we wandered around to have a look at the whole festival and then went to one of the restaurants (there are I think 4 restaurants down Roca). We sat down and wanted to have a look at the menu, but the waiter told us, that they were out of food as well. Apparently the Festival Mundial del Choripán was so successful with the fellow Cordobese, that the few Choripán carros were completely overrun by hungry masses, then the restaurants in the park and then the restaurants further down the street (El Club de la Milanesa, McDonalds and a lot more, all with long queues outside).

We decided to walk a few blocks and went to Betos to get us some lomitos. It was late (i.e. 0030; at least for my German stomach that is late) and by this time we were really hungry. And even at Betos we had to wait a while, because others had the same idea...

And here is, what the local press says about the success of the Festival Mundial del Choripán: Dia a Dia - Córdoba ...