Salad is the essential accompaniment to an Argentine steak. But Cecilia Quintana, a children's party entertainer, has not bought a ­lettuce since November, after the price went up more than 160 per cent. "I won't pay 8 pesos ($2.59, €1.90, £1.30) a kilo for what's basically a weed, " she fumed.

"It's outrageous, " agreed Dolly de Pose, a housewife who used to buy fish regularly until it started to cost 60 per cent more than it did a few months ago. "You see a lot of people in the shops picking things up off the shelves, and then putting them down. "