I recently celebrated my birthday here in Peru. My actually birthday was spent with the rest of the environment volunteers during a training event on the coast. My birthday gifts included a really fascinating PowerPoint on northern Peruvian marine life [read with heavy sarcasm], a machete [good/bad idea while given at a bar], a sea lion canine cut out of the washed up beast [don’t worry environmentalists – we found it dead], and plenty of good wishes. However, before I left for the above mentioned training event I celebrated my birthday the good old campo way with my family: cuyes and beer. Nothing unusual, I have enjoyed plenty a guinea pig feast so far and love the little guys. This time however, I offered to step up and prepare the meal...from start to finish.
Yep, I got to kill my first cuy. Now I know this might not be exciting if you are accustomed to killing your own livestock i.e. chickens, pigs, etc. But for this guy it was an experience. I told my mom a few months ago that I needed to learn how to kill/cook cuy so that when I go home and buy them at the pet store [this is only 60% a joke] I could prepare them myself for all of my friends and family. When we planned to have the lunch for my birthday I thought to myself “what a perfect opportunity to master the art of cuy”. So we planned on me helping out with every step of the process. I awoke the morning of my birthday lunch and realized that the day had come to put my jabbering mouth to the test. I figure if I can raise and eat the little guys I should at least have the stomach to prepare one. We started preparing lunch around 9:45, giving a bit of time for breakfast to properly digest.
**I am going to keep this next part real. If you are from PETA or have a weak stomach tough luck, you’re reading this voluntarily**
Some people choose to kill cuy with a very dull rusting knife. I was glad when this option was thrown out for the easier snapping-of-the-neck approach. I hope to attempt the knife version at some point but if can get a little graphic when the “clean cut” ideal turns into a 3 minute struggle. So, we snapped the necks. My mom, as a professional, was able to hold the neck in one hand and use the other to forcefully snap the neck and quickly/painlessly kill our lunch. I’m still an amateur. My mom showed this amateur that the hard adobe ledge of our cook top could double as a cuy smashing station. You simply press the head down really hard until you hear a “snap”. Okay, I was up to bat. My mom killed two in a matter of seconds. I started without the ledge method but quickly moved to it when my strength was only enough to draw blood and whimpering from the cuy. The ledge method wasn’t immediately successful either. I was pressing pretty hard and heard a few “snaps” but the little dude kept squirming about. Finally, with my mom’s guiding hand I was able to find the right spot and complete step one of preparing the cuy. Not as bad as I had thought.
Next, you need to de-hair the critters. This is a pretty simple procedure that includes hot water and lots of plucking. We dipped the freshly killed cuyes into a pot of hot water and began ripping the hair out. It worked surprisingly well. Now, you had to clean and shave the naked cuy. We washed them in our sink/shower/faucet/generic water source and shaved the rest of the hair off with a knife. Next, you had to really clean them…all of them. Meat is such a rare commodity at the dinner table that every scrap is put to use. That means instead of just cutting open and tossing out all the inside goodness you need to spend a half hour cleaning all the nooks and crannies of the intestines and internal organs. After washing out all the feces from the innards we seasoned the meat. We used freshly ground garlic and salt. That’s it. We let them marinate for an hour or so and then threw all the meat into a frying pan until it turned crispy and golden brown.
Alex climbed up the hill for lunch and together with my family we sat down and enjoyed the delicious Andean treat. It turned out superb and now I can transform a PetSmart purchase into a tasty meal. I hope you are all ready for that when I return.
After lunch, my parents, Alex and I shared some beers and I even pulled out the Glenlivet scotch my dad brought from the states for a round of shots. A good campo birthday and a great learning/cultural experience in the preparation of our dear friend: the guinea pig.
I hope all is well with everyone, and that you enjoyed the above. Thanks for reading and feel free to shoot me an email whenever you want.
Cheers,
Peter
A view of my house and Huascaran (6,768 meters/22,205 feet) .
In the rock forest Hatunmachay in front of the campesino's houses.
The above mentioned rock forest of Hatunmachay.
Cave paintings from around 6000-8000 years old in Hatunmachay rock forest.
Taking the hair off of our freshly killed cuy.
Same as above. Note the blood tripping down the cook top.
The two volunteers and our little brothers at the start of the glacier of Huascaran. 4,800 meters high.
Me and my little host brother at the ice.
Marching with the school and the professors in the Independence Day parade in Yungay.
Harvesting wheat with the family. Donkeys, sticks, and a big black tarp are all you need.
The new baby cow. Taken only a few hours after her birth.
The trash truck right outside my house. Win.
One of the freshly painted trash cans. We have 10 of them now in the community.
Plowing to prepare for the community potato planting.
The potato harvest of the family. Bagged and ready for the market.
