Guine pig for dinner

It's interesting how polarising the idea of eating guinea pig can be, even within our group of 35. For me it was embracing part of Peruvian culture. 

Last night I ticked off one of my Peruvian goals which was to try it. Shared between 5 of us at a lovely restaurant it felt like the best way to do it (rather than from a street stall which is also very common here).

I wanted to try it for a couple of reason: first, because it's a celebratory dish here, and as visitors if we visited someone's home, this is the dish they would make to welcome us. The true honour I am told, is to suck out the eyeballs but thankfully this wasn't on the menu for ours yesterday.

Secondly, because if I am prepared to eat other animals, it seems incongruent that I wouldn't be prepared to try this. Yes guinea pigs are lovely pets, and so are many other animals that we routinely eat in the UK (like my chickens). I wanted to challenge my western attitude to meat eating, and although it wasn't easy, I'm glad I did.

The dish itself was physically tough to eat. There's not much meat, and having been roasted for an hour (we had to call in advance and reserve 1 of the 4 cuy they serve each day), it's quite dry and gamey. The taste though was very pleasant, like succulent chicken, a crossover maybe between chicken and pork.

According to Google, the guinea pig has a 5,000-year history in Peru, beginning with pre-Incan civilizations who domesticated them for food and spiritual purposes, a tradition continued and expanded by the Incas in rituals and as a vital protein source. After the Spanish conquest, guinea pigs persisted in the Andes, evolving into the iconic dish "cut" and today symbolizing Peruvian identity, prosperity, and cultural heritage through various culinary traditions and festivals.

Guinea pigs got to the UK from Peru via European explorers and traders, such as the Spanish and Dutch, who brought them back to Europe in the 16th century after discovering the animals in the Andes region where aristocrats kept them as pets.

I am told that in some parts, Andean shaman will diagnose someone's illness by cutting open a live guinea pig and checking its insides as a proxy for the human. This is a practice which feels far more barbaric to me than eating them. That said, the term "guinea pig" to mean experimenting on someone, came about from biomedical testing because their anatomy is so similar to that of a human.

If you think this is a touristic thing it isn't. We have seen them throughout Peru especially in the countryside, with many people eating them traditionally on Sunday as we would a roast dinner. They are many statues of guinea pigs along the roadside (one where it held a dish of cuy itself which was a bit disturbing)!

We did our best to honour the animal with a little ode created by chat GPT. We were thinking of "ode to the haggis" and it helped lighten the mood when the time came!

However you feel about this, I hope it helps you reflect on your own ideas around food, animals and culture. It's good to be challenge and to stay conscious around what does and doesn't feel ok for you. I don't feel the need to eat one again, but I'm glad I went outside my comfort zone and tried it.

Ode to the Cuy

Golden crisp, a feast divine, From Andes earth to table fine, A humble creature, honored, shared, With spice and care, so well prepared.

You crunch beneath the mountain sky, A taste of history close and nigh, Sacred offering, rustic, true— Peru’s proud gift, we honor you.

Photos: the traditional cuy dish / having a bite / typical Peruvian signage