I felt kind of strange about it, but I tried a traditional Andean dish
today...quy. They raise them here as a food source, and though it used to be eaten by the poor, now it can be considered a delicacy. My half
qui cost as much as half a roasted chicken. The internal conflict
came, however, in that the translation for quy is "guinea
pig"...which, as you all know, are considered as pets not food in the
U.S. It actually wasn't bad when I didn't think about which type of
little animal I was eating. I drew the line at eating the slab of
cooked pig skin that my friends were eating instead of the quy,
though. I felt like I took the better of the two choices!
Oh, and we just found out that three of our office staff are confirmed cases of A(H1N1), which is still a pretty big deal around here...as far as we know we're not ALL under quarantine yet, but we may be within the next week. Ironic that just the other day I was telling my family not to worry, and that I would be more likely to get it in Utah than here...
um... good luck with all of that... it sounds... well not good.
ReplyDeleteIn my 8th grade Spanish class we watched a movie about Peru and they talked about how Quy was such a delicacy...and then they showed people frying the guinea pig alive because it "tastes better." Scarred me for life...I think it is the thing I remember the most from that whole class, or maybe my whole middle school experience! I'm glad it was good though!
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't catch H1N1 and get stuck in South America! When do you head back to the States?
sick alisha, that's disgusting! i kinda hope you get quarantined, then you will have to post stuff on the blog because you'll be home! j/k-swine flu is bad (or as public health professionals or almost professionals, do we have to say H1N1?)
ReplyDeleteA (H1N1), yes, we have to be professional...in the office we've been banned from calling it swine flu.
ReplyDeleteAnd in response to Camille...I have no idea if they fry them alive or not, and I'm glad I didn't know that when I ate it. Apparently it has more meat per pound than beef, though, and definitely eats less so it's a big deal in the mountain area.
I ate that in Ecuador too! They had a little boxed in area for the live ones to play and asked if we wanted to pick out which one we wanted cooked up, I declined... But it doesn't taste too bad. It is kind of gross when it sits open-mouthed and open-eyed on your plate though.
ReplyDelete