Guinea pig in Cuenca

Sooner or later it had to happen. We ate Cuy, otherwise known as guinea pig. It's a traditional dish here in Ecuador and if you walk down the street in most towns you'll see it, usually being roasted on a spit. Admittedly, it doesn't look a pretty sight. On the spit it looks like it is doing a superman impression, like its last act was to jump off a cliff but instead got caught in mid-air! You can still see its rodenty teeth, its whiskers, its sharp little claws reaching out in front, and its hairless body. It all looks decidedly unappetising, to me anyway!

Left to our own devices, I'm not sure that we would have tried cuy. When we get around to eating, I'm usually pretty starving, and the thought of eating something that may turn my stomach makes it unlikely that I'll plump for it. And it's not cheap, either. Apparently, your own cooked rodent will set you back about $20... and that's a sizable chunk of our daily budget.

But we weren't left to our own devices. We are studying at the Simon Bolivar language school, a particularly sociable place - they run free salsa and cooking classes in the evenings - and, I imagine to be even more inclusive, we were offered to join the students and teachers for lunch, a set menu of guinea pig. Well, why not? I thought that if anything, it would be good to get to know our fellow students and maybe practice a little of the Spanish we spent all week learning. As it happened, everybody pretty much spoke in English. Damn that universal language!

We walked across town in a group of about twenty-five or so, and settled in at a nice looking wooden-clad, cosy restaurant. Then we were offered a chance to view our meal before it had been cooked. At this point everyone whipped out their cameras (I'd foolishly left mine behind) went up and took plenty of snaps of the hairless and gutted animals. What a way to whet the appetite!

Ten minutes later dinner was served. Or rather, dinner fell on my plate. The waiter brought out plates of various guinea pig parts and as he was setting it down in the middle, a guinea pig head dropped in front of me. It was all rather dramatic. In particular, the German and the Kiwi opposite found this very funny. And it really was. I think it was the final nail in the coffin of my appetite. I forced myself to take a 'middle' section of the animal and, importantly, try the skin while it was still crispy. It was like crackling and perfectly fine if you're into crackling. The meat on the other hand was slimy, salty, full of small bones and in general there really wasn't much of it. Guinea pigs aren't really known for their vast quantities of meat. Once you've removed the fluffy fur, there's not much underneath.

The rather strange American woman next to me enjoyed professing how much she was enjoying the meal. Fair enough, but it was done in that annoying "I'm eating something cultural and isn't it great?" kind of a way. Trying the food in the first place is enough. You don't need to pretend you've found a replacement for a Chateaubriand!

Let's face it, there are plenty of other animals in this world that taste better than guinea pig. Perhaps someone should challenge me on that. And yes, terrible as it makes me, I am one of these people who doesn't like to think too hard about where the meat on my plate has come from. At least not at dinner time.

But this is all my own opinion. If you're in Ecuador (or Peru apparently) give it a try. You might like it! Oh, and by the way, I had intended to source a picture of an uncooked cuy, but it's just too disgusting. I'll leave it to you to do a Google search if you want to see gruesome images!