Brazil and the Hot Chips Index
On any given evening, the humble potato chip (or “fries”, for my yanqui readers reader) forms one of the staples of the Brazilian diet. Alongside most dishes comes a generous helping of: rice, beans, farofa (salty crunchy flour, like breadcrumbs. Surprisingly edible) spaghetti and fries. That’s right; a holy quinity of starchy, carb-loading sides. Brazilians might be poor, but they’re obviously not starving, by the metric trainload of included sides you get here.
Yet on another evening (like, say, this evening) if you were to order, say, just ONE of these staples, you’d be tearing the space-time continuum, and the laws of supply and demand, right in two. And like the holy Trinity, the Brazilian Quinity of cheap-ass staple foods can NEVER be divided, or aforementioned laws of the universe will cease to apply.
Case in point – Hot Chips
Hot Chips, when ordered separately, somehow cost more than the entire meal you get them with. I’m talking *caviar wrapped in albino fur seal bacon* expensive, by comparison.
Prato Do Dia - Typical Brazilian meal (includes chips)
Prato Do Dia (Carne) – A decent meal of steak, prok or chicken w/ salad, big portions of sides, with about 1 cup of chips.
Cost: BRL$8.90
Medium-size takeaway container of Hot Chips, solo:
COST: BRL$11.00
This is no isolated event. Three times now I’ve been sent packing for a container of hot chips by a hungover girlfriend, and three times wandered back home from different vendors: dazed, confused and counting my money muttering “Quest-ce que le f&*ck??”.
“Dear Brazilian Prime Minister Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (“Lula”),
How will you ever pull your country, and countryfolk, out of economic disparation and social inequality if the cornerstone of your economy – the small businesses that sell me ripoff chips – simply don’t understand rational economic principles?”
The Economist magazine has their Big Mac Index, measuring the relative prices of Big Macs according to Purchasing Power Parity, worldwide. Maybe they should update it to include fries with that, and BRAZIL CAN SUCK EVEN MORE.