Everyone complained about scarcity, but everyone had a full fridge. And I?ll tell you something: Avicola (the poultry farm) saved a lot of people from hunger. You could buy 2 or 3 boxes of eggs, not just 5 or 10 eggs. And those hateful Crevedia chicken, they were quite all right! They saved us from hunger.

The rations were regularized, too. The edible oil, the meat. We had more than we do now, say what you might? (22)

People talked about dying from hunger, that?s what they feared ? but in reality there could be no such thing. About 1988, once the new constructions were started which Ceasuescu decided needed big money, the economy went down a bit. Aliments were then restricted, in order to cope with the expenses, they traded wheat for oil, etc. If the urban structure was to be changed so radically, we had to ?save? from somewhere else.   (M. C., 61)

At the time, Ceausescu wanted to establish a system of rational and collective alimentation, inspired by his trips to Asia. He therefore ordered some large buildings, in the shape of a circus. Only the one from the Union Square was finished. Ceausescu wanted to turn them into some eating places for the workers, yet his thought was not put into practice, and for some time they functioned as shops, which where set up inside the dome. This shift in the destination of the building was conceived in such a way as to give him the possibility to say that the people did not want eating places, and the shops were put together as a result of their wish. That was one of Ceausescu?s tricks, because he always built what he wanted, anyway, yet that time it was a little different, since he built it with the destination of some eating places, but he was aware that the people would not enjoy the idea, so he subjected the building to the vote of the Great National Assembly, and eventually he published the result in the press and he concluded that: that?s it, the people did not want it, and they got what they wanted. (O. S., 169)

They were some buildings made at his request, at least one per region, which were supposed to have a monstrous destination, every person was sent to one of these constructions, which the people called The Hunger Circus, because it was in these buildings where you were supposed to get your daily meals. Gradually, the cooking in every family would have faded away, the breakfast would have been served in the eating places in every factory, and the children would have had it at schools and at the nursery school, everybody would have had lunch at these Hunger Circuses, and dinner would have also been given from these places, in small tins. Under the circumstances, the wages would have become lower. Some cultural-educational programs would have been presented in order to help molding ?The New Man? (M. V., 157)