Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Michael wasn't all that keen on trying cuy, and to be honest, neither was I. But I lobbied for it because I felt it is a part of the Peruvian experience. Cuy, or guinea pig, is a regional specialty and we've been seeing signs for it in restaurants all over Cuzco. But we wanted an authentic experience, not a touristified one and we discovered that there is a town called Tipón just twenty-five kilometers out of the city that specializes in cuy. A whole town that specializes in something seems to be the place to try it. So today we took ourselves out there.

First we headed to the bus station. Tipón is on the way to Puno, so we figured a Puno-bound bus was what we wanted. No. That was not the way, informed the woman at one of the bus counters. She said we'd need to catch a collectivo, and she wrote down the name of the hospital in front of which we were to catch it. She told us not to pay more than two soles in a taxi to get to the hospital.

So we took a taxi to the collectivo spot (something seemed wrong about that) and waited. It was unusually hot. It's been vaguely cool in Cuzco's center by day, and cold by night, but standing in the sun at the side of the road was hot and miserable. The locals all shielded their faces with folders or sweaters or whatever they happened to be holding. Dozens of collectivos rolled by, with their doors open like Flatbush dollar vans. It was interesting to note that many of the ayudantes leaning out the open doors and chanting destinations were female. Naturally the collectivo we wanted was the rare one and we got to watch a lot of these girls and women roll by.

Finally the Tipón bus rolled up and we hopped in. It was an unremarkable ride out of town except for when we passed the university and one of the passengers saw her daughter and wanted to say hi. Then the bus stopped and we all waited while the ayudante ran to get the daughter's attention. "Se llama Carla," the mother called out after him, and the rest of the passengers chimed in, "Carla! Dile Carla!"

That taken care of, we made it out to Tipón, a long, red-brown dirt strip of a town. It was true, there were cuyerias everywhere, and signs pointing towards other cuy restaurants unfortunately located off the main strip. And a few restaurants specializing in chiccharrones, but we weren't worried about those. We strolled down the strip peering at each of them with no idea how to pick. Some of the restaurant people tried to entice us in, but while that used to be endearing to me it's now become a nuisance and I like to avoid places that do it.

There were an unbelievable number of places and most were empty. Who eats all this cuy? The town of Tipón doesn't look big enough to support all those restaurants on its own. Do Cusqueños come out here by the collectivoload in the evenings? Tour groups of gringos hungry for a culinary adventure?

We finally ended up at a place where the woman messing around with the outdoor oven did no more than greet us, and where a local couple was sitting inside. The oven, a huge domed affair with a wood fire burning inside it was just outside the door, and we peeked inside to see rows of guinea pigs roasting whole, mouths open, paws in the air.

We talked to the woman cooking and found that the larger cuys are fifteen soles and the smaller, thirteen. We watched as she prepared a cuy for the couple waiting inside. First she took her cleaver and hacked him in half. The fifteen sole size or the thirteen, we were not able to judge. Then she removed the green herbs that had been stuffed down his throat and placed the two halves of him innard-side down on two separate plates, surrounded by boiled potatoes, fideos (noodles) and rocoto (stuffed peppers).

"Michael," I whispered, "let's just get one!"

"But I want a whole one," he said.

"But I don't think I'm going to like it and then you can have my half too, okay?"

Michael ordered a large guinea pig, a fifteen soler, for the two of us, and a big beer, and we went in to sit down. The restaurant was a large concrete room with a few white plastic tables and chairs. The decor consisted solely of a poster on the wall advertising the local cuy festival, which we had missed by just a few days. The poster included a photo of a live guinea pig with brown and white fur. Cute, but I couldn't say he looked tasty.

After a short while our plates arrived. The cook had fixed our cuy as she had for the other couple, dividing him and his accompaniments between our two plates. Our cuy must have roasted with his head turned to the side because although he was cut lengthwise down the middle, giving each of us one forepaw and one rear, I had the bottom of the face with the protruding bottom teeth and Michael had the top, with the eyes.

I can't really say why I was so squeamish about these guinea pigs. I have never had one as a pet, so I have no personal connection, and I'll happily eat a fish presented whole, with the eye looking at me. But this little guy, I don't know, I just couldn't deal with it. Little bits of whiskers not quite singed off... there was just something about it. But I was the one who pushed to try it and who insisted on coming out to Tipón to do it, so I took up my utensils and extracted myself a forkful of guinea pig.

I only took two bites of the thing, but they should count for more than that since it took me at least seven minutes to chew each bite enough to swallow it. Are cuys naturally so chewy or did we hit a bad cook? It doesn't matter. At no time did I have a feeling of "oh if only these were more X they would be delicious." So I don't see myself trying it again and I guess I'll never know.

Meanwhile, over at Michael's plate, true carnage was taking place. He ate his whole half, tearing off strips and chomping, and finding bits of meat where I didn't think meat could be.

"Stop eating that one and eat some of mine," I said. "I don't want her to think I didn't like it."

So he went at mine too, and did a respectable job of it. I didn't like the mushy noodles either, and the potatoes were just plain and boiled, but I was hungry, so I ate a potato with some of the spicy green sauce from the bowl on the table and drank beer, goggling at how Michael was making sure that guinea pig did not die in vain. He says he didn't like it, but if that's the case, I'm afraid to see what happens to the food he does like.

Between the beer and the lack of food and the sight of my boyfriend sucking the meat off the bones of a guinea pig, I was a little dazed when we got up to pay. There was no charge for splitting the plates. Large guinea pigs are fifteen soles whether whole or halved. So our meal came to seventeen soles, or about five US dollars for the two of us. I was leaving the restaurant still hungry, but at least I hadn't spent a lot of money to do it. And now I can say I've eaten guinea pig. If two bites counts as eating.

 

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Tipón, Peru.

Cuyerias, Tipón.

Guinea pigs in the oven.

The uncaptionable guinea pig photo, Tipón.

No wait, maybe this is the uncaptionable guinea pig photo.

Guinea pigs, plated. Tipón.

Collectivo back to Cuzco, Tipón.