Okay, I have a cat, but he probably wouldn’t taste very good. He’s old (14) and scrawny and a bit stinky because he’s neurotic and spends a lot of time visiting his box.
No, Iggy probably wouldn’t taste very good if I slaughtered him, skinned him and roasted him in a 400-degree oven slathered in red wine, some garlic, onions, maybe carrots and potatoes too, but maybe some cuy would.
In case you didn’t know, cuy are popular treats in South America. They’re what we call guinea pigs, though according to the book I’m reading, they can be as big as small dogs; imagine a guinea pig the size of a Yorkshire Terrier. And apparently, they’re delicious — somewhere between a rabbit and a chicken.
The book is Hungry Planet, and it’s one of two I’ve been recently reading with fascination.
When I lived in Zaire, Africa, we had several guinea pigs. We named one Adolf, because he was the biggest and a bully, lording it over the other pigs. Then one day we came home from school to find them all gone, and it was only years later that we found out that my mother, tiring of their mess, had given them to the help, no doubt to be cooked up in a nice sauce of red wine, some garlic, onions, maybe carrots and potatoes too. But I digress.
Hungry Planet is a book with great writing (think National Geographic meets Cook’s Illustrated) and great photos of what families worldwide purchase and eat in a week. It’s a real eye-opener.
The other book that has occupied at least a month in daily reading is A Mediterranean Feast, which is an amazing compendium of history and recipe book that I’d had sitting on my shelf for years until I decided to read it. If you’re at all interested in history and food, this one will keep you glued to every page, and Clifford Wright doesn’t mess around — his recipes can be really tough (but never too tough — you’ll never be asked to roast “Deboned breast of camel”).
On his Amazon blog I pleaded for him to write “An Asian Feast” but he replied: “Sadly, I don't believe either I or anyone else will be able to write a book such as "An Asian Feast" in these times of dumbed-down cookbooks and lowest-common-denominator cooking. Publishers seem particularly uninterested as they increasingly watch their bottom line. On top of which, it's an enormous commitment on the writers' part to undertake such a task. Every time I flip through Mediterranean Feast I think ‘was I nuts.’”
Yes, he was nuts, and you will be the beneficiary.
I was in a market in Ecuador a few years ago and among the various things people were buying and selling were cuy. I have to admit it seemed odd; you'd see some Andean lady handing a live Guinea pig to some other Andean lady, who would then stuff it in a bag and move on to the beans or potatoes. Funny to think that would be dinner that night.
ReplyDeleteI also saw it on a couple of menus, but never tried it.
I'd imagine it a bit like chicken. I mean, hey, it's a rodent, not a turnip. You've always heard about the folk who ate rats and they weren't bad, but then you think, why should they taste bad?
ReplyDeletePeople eat shrimp, which to me are as close to scorpions as they come, and they taste pretty good. Ditto for crabs and lobster.
I ate zebra once, in a Kenyan restaurant. Nothing weird--just tasted like generic meat.
Not that I'd take to the Cheval that's in the meat counter at Metro any time soon . . . but it just goes to show how many of our food prejudices are mental.
But like most folk, I'd always prefer a good spaghetti bolognaise than ribeye of Guinea Pig.