You Don't Have to Eat Cuy, Roy

The taxi driver and I have been speaking – yes, all in Spanish, thanks - for the past forty five minutes as we drive into Quito. Alright, he’s been speaking. I’ve been throwing out responses like “Si,” and “No,” and “Claro!” and “Verdad?,” because to do more would be pushing the boundaries of my linguistic skills. We’ve talked about the new airport (yes, it’s really far from town), baseball (apparently they do play baseball in Ecuador), traffic (yes, lots of traffic), and have now moved on to food.

Every taxi driver in South America, I continue to discover, is an expert on food.

“Have you had the cuy?” my driver asks me.

I’ve only been in the country for a little over an hour, so unless he’s referring to something you pick up at the airport baggage claim men’s room, I suspect the answer here would be no. We are still talking about food, right?

“What’s cuy?” I ask him. “Is that some kind of fish?”

I don’t think that’s such a bad guess. You know, like a cuy pond. Oh, that’s a koi pond? So never tmind.

He laughs. “You don’t know about cuy?”

Yes, I feel stupid, but again: in the country all of one hour. We probably should go back to baseball. “A vegetable?”

This guy thinks I’m hilarious. He declines to explain further, but gives me the name of a restaurant near my hotel in the Mariscal section of Quito, where – the driver says – I’ll be fine if I avoid the drug dealers. Make sure you go to this restaurant, he tells me, and ask for the cuy.

“But not the vegetable cuy,” he says. And he laughs and laughs and laughs.

*          *          *         

There are women in my life of a certain predilection - and they know who they are -  who worship Anthony Bourdain. Many possible reasons (the New York swagger, the 6 ft., 4 in. frame, the distinguished grey) I’m sure, but I suspect it really boils down to one thing: Anthony Bourdain has the cajones to walk into any food shack in any unpronounceable, back-water village in the world and eat absolutely anything.

 

Brains, entrails, organ meat, horse heads cooked in dirt, fried testicles, sautéed esophagus … if you can dream it up, cook it (or not), and throw it on a plate (or not) he will eat it. He is the Super Hero of the Foodie Generation: the good-looking rebel who plays by his own rules, travels the world, hosts his own TV show, eats donkey eyeballs, and his spare time whips up a mean cheese soufflé. 

Of course I suspect Anthony Bourdain also spends a lot of time throwing up off camera. But give the man his due: he has constructed a larger-than-life persona around the courage to gamely sample the world’s most repulsive cuisines. The girls just eat it up. So to speak.  

I can’t hope to compete with Mr. Bourdain in the Bizarre Food/Iron Stomach Competition, but I do try to eat like the locals whenever possible. In fact my final meal in Medellin, Colombia before arriving in Ecuador was mondongo, a thick, stew-like dish of which the main ingredient (or at least the only one I’m cursed to remember) is diced tripe. 

 Try ordering that at your neighborhood Applebee’s.

So whatever cuy is, I’m sure I’ll eventually get around to trying it at some point during my stay in Ecuador. I mean, come on. You’re talking to a man who ate haggis in Scotland, and only hours before polished off a steaming bowl of chopped pig intestine soup. If in Ecuador what they eat is cuy, I will eat cuy.

It’s what Anthony would do.

*          *          *

When I get to my hotel room and connect to the Internet, I Google cuy.

Oh. I see.

So this is why no one in America has dared to open an Ecuadoran restaurant at the mall food court.

At least not near the pet store.

*          *          *

Cuy, or Guinea Pig, as it’s known where I come from, shows up on the menu for the first time the next evening, at La Petit Mariscal, a Belgian/Ecuadoran restaurant (no, that is not a typo: a Belgian– slash – Ecuadoran restaurant) recommended by my hotel desk clerk. The clerk’s attitude while sending me on a ten-minute walk through the Zona Rosa after dark could best be described as “casually concerned.” Like the taxi driver, he cautions me about drug dealers on the street corners.

“Eight, nine o’clock, you should be okay,” he tells me. “No problem.”

“What about ten o’clock?”

He pauses and looks briefly at the ceiling. “Probably okay.”

“Probably?”

“Just watch out for the …”

“… drug dealers on the corner. Like you said. After ten. Got it.”

The drug dealers in Mariscal are pretty easy to spot, positioned about every other block or so like personal greeters at the door of the neighborhood Wal-Mart. Except that they are considerably younger than the greeters at Walmart. And they don’t smile, or greet you. And you know, they’re selling drugs.

Yet walking down unfamiliar South American streets in the non-family friendly side of the city, I don’t feel particularly uncomfortable. There are plenty of people on the sidewalk as an early crowd lingers outside of bass-thumping discos and sad little karaoke bars, and the cops in the center of Foch Square more or less outnumber the drug dealers. Besides, I decide that I really don’t have anything to fear from the boys on the corner. These are not the guys who are going to mug me; they have business to do, and if I’m not buying, they’d just assume I have a nice night and be on my way. God bless Entrepreneurial Capitalism!

As far as I’m concerned, the Special of the Day printed on the restaurant menu is a lot more frightening than anything out on the sidewalk.

GUINEA PIG ROLL/ENROLLADA DE CUY

We serve it without the bones; stuffed with vegetables and a sauce made from the cuy itself

There it is: Guinea Pig Roll. Like a South American version of the Taco Bell Burrito Supreme. Guinea Pigs in a Blanket. With Guinea Pig Sauce!

I send a text to P. to inform her of what’s on the menu in Ecuador, expecting some solidarity in my hesitancy to eat the family pet for dinner.

“Order it!” she responds emphatically. “I would!”

I look at the text and then back at the menu.

“Really?” I text. “Doesn’t this come dangerously close to eating a rat?”

“Don’t be afraid,” is the text that comes back, but I can feel the subtext hanging in the air a continent away: “Don’t be afraid. You wuss.” I know when my manhood is being challenged.

Damn you, Anthony Bourdain.

Guinea Pig. Guinea Pig Roll. I’m wondering if this is served with a side of wood chips.

The waiter is now hovering over me, order pad in hand.

“Do you know what you would like, señor?”

I let out a heavy exhale as I hand him back the menu. I notice my palms are sweaty.

“I’ll have the chicken.”

“Very good, señor. The chicken.”

The chicken, his expression tells me. For the chicken.

*          *          *

The next day I get a Facebook text message from the Ex, currently located in Abu Dhabi. She tells me she’s headed out to the desert soon, to ride camels. My God, life is strange.

“How’s the South America trip going?”

“Fine,” I text back. “Hey let me ask you a question. Do you know what cuy is?”

“No. Do you?”

“I do after Googling it. It’s Guinea Pig.”

“Ah.”

“The question is, would you eat it?”

She tells me a man at a cookout in Queens once offered her a Guinea Pig on a stick.

“It wasn’t done yet,” she writes, “or I would have tried some.”

Come on. Really?

“But isn’t this like eating cat? Or rat?”

“Oh, I would try it. It’s not like eating a rat. More like a bunny.”

Apparently I am surrounded by indiscriminate, flesh-eating carnivore women. What does this say about me?

“I’ll eat anything,” she continues. “Except maybe brains. But then someone told me they were really good, so …”

“Really?” I’m incredulous. “Cat? Dog?”

“You know, if it’s on the menu … I might try it.  I ate horse. I ate a rabbit. These are all friendly creatures. Does that make me a terrible person?”

I’m about to respond that, yes, that does kind of make you a terrible person, but then I stop and think. I also have eaten horse and rabbit, which, I have to admit, probably qualify as pets as much as a Guinea Pig does. In fact, I now remember the Ex herself once had a pet rabbit. I even remember the damn thing’s name.

And yes, I’m sure there’s some kid out on a farm somewhere that has a pet chicken.

“Okay,” I type. “That actually kind of helps, thanks. Enjoy your camel ride.”

*          *          *

By the time I get to Cuenca I am resolved to dive in for the complete Guinea Pig Experience. None of this sissified, Belgian-influenced, de-boned, cuy burrito crap. If I’m eating cuy, I’m eating it like the Ecuadorans do: rotisserie fried until that little sucker is cooked to a crisp.

I Google “Best Place to Eat Cuy in Cuenca.” The number one hit is a block and a half from my hotel. I’m going in. And I haven’t even had a drink yet.

The logo on the sign outside of Guajibamba tells me all I need to know: a smiling cook in a monogrammed apron and Chef Boyardee hat, proudly holding a Guinea Pig impaled on a stick. Pretty sure I’ve got the right place.

Like much of South America, dinner in Ecuador before nine o’clock is like going to the Early Bird Special at Denny’s; you only go if you’re over 65 or really, really hungry.  At 8:00 p.m. the only others in Guajibamba are a scattering of tourists and a couple of Ecuadorans, obviously having a late lunch. But the last thing I’m looking to be is fashionable.

When I inform the waitress that I want to try the cuy, she tells me three things. First, the only way to “try” the cuy is to order it whole. This isn’t Boston Market, where you can get half a chicken and a side of cole slaw. The whole cuy at Guajibamba cost $21, twice as much as anything else on the menu. Fine; bring it on.

Next, she tells me, the cuy takes an hour to prepare. Not a problem, I answer. The last thing I want is undercooked cuy.

Finally, she tells me (I swear), that before I place the order, she’s going need my name, hotel, and passport number.  I don’t have my passport, I tell her. She shrugs. Just your name and where you’re staying then.

My Spanish isn’t good enough to ask why this information is required. Are they worried that I’m going to chicken out during the hour-long preparation time and walk the check? Or is it because in case of a medical emergency involving cuy, the restaurant by law needs to notify someone at the U.S. embassy?

Some things are better left unasked.

*          *          *         

The hour-long Countdown to Cuy has begun. To pass the time I have been given a bowl of salted corn nuts, and steaming teapot of canelazo. The canelazo is

a hot mixture of sugar, water, lemon, and zhumir – the rum-like, national liquor of Ecuador that comes in at 80 proof.  It takes all of about forty-five seconds for the buzz to hit me.

It’s good. Really good. I suspect it would be really, really good if you were delirious and in bed with the flu.

I sip my canelazo, munch a corn nut, and check my watch. Thirty five minutes until the rat arrives. I feel a death-row inmate, waiting for my execution at midnight.

I text P. a status report.

“Almost cuy time.”

“Aren’t you excited? Send me a pic as soon as it arrives!”

I think about the question.

“I am excited,” I text. “I also feel like a contestant on Fear Factor.”

The waitress comes by to ask me if I’d like any more corn nuts. Didn’t Mom always used to say, don’t fill up on corn nuts; you won’t have any room left for Guinea Pig?

No, I’m pretty sure she never formed that particular sentence.

Wow, the zhumir is really kicking in.

“No, gracias, pero un poco mas de canelazo, por favor.”

She nods and yells back to the kitchen, something that I suspect roughly translates as “Drunk Gringo at Table Six!”

Canelazo-fueled courage. Maybe this is how Anthony does it.

*          *          *

As promised, after an hour the cuy arrives at the table, accompanied by a side of potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, and a bowl of mote (white hominy). But am I really paying attention to potatoes? I’ve seen potatoes. No. I’m pretty much riveted by the Guinea Pig, literally standing on the plate in front of me. It is whole, roasted, and poised with tiny claws on all fours, like a sprinter in the starting blocks of a track and field event.

And there you have it: Cuy.

But not the vegetable cuy.

The waitress stands by proudly, saying she wanted to show it to me before they cut it up. “Por supuesto,” I say. Of course! How else would one serve a Guinea Pig? I snap a picture and text it to P. Her response comes in five seconds.

“No!!!!!”

“Oh, yes,” I reply. “Pictures don’t lie.”

“Oh … my … God!”

The waitress has taken my main course back to kitchen. I can hear the echo from the butcher block as they complete the non-ceremonial Chopping of the Guinea Pig.  The animal comes back to my table in fifths: right rear, left rear, right front, left front, and head.

Of course you get the head. What, you think that goes in the trash?

With a smile and a “buon provecho,” the waitress leaves me to wrestle with my fried ratty. I pick up one of the hind quarters, and take a bite. Tastes just like chicken, right? Doesn’t every strange food we’ve never had before taste “just like chicken?”

Cuy doesn’t taste just like chicken. I’m not sure it tastes just quite like anything I’ve ever eaten before. The skin is fried crunchy and salty, putting it somewhere in the pork rind family of food products. Once past the crunchy skin, I have to work to get at the meat. The bones are small. I try not to look at the tiny claws.

My phone vibrates with a text from P.  I put down my rat leg.

 “I can’t stop laughing. How is it?”

“It’s difficult to eat, to get at the meat.”

“Is it awful?”

I answer honestly. “When you get it, it’s actually pretty tasty.”

“Get in there! You know I’d be picking it up!”

Way ahead of you, sweetheart.

I work my way through the two hind quarters and tackle the front. There are some pungent internal organs (what, you think they took those out?) that are a little organ meat-y for my taste, but I eat that, too.

I’m almost through the entire body, and I am stuffed full of Guinea Pig. I may never be Anthony Bourdain, but I’m pretty proud of myself, and, a little drunk. I look at the final piece on the platter in front of me.  I put down a claw and text P.

“It’s not bad,” I report. “But I’m sorry. I’m not eating the head.”

She can’t believe it.

“That’s going to be the best part!!

At least try an ear.”

I’m not nearly drunk enough to nibble on a Guinea Pig ear. But I can’t help but smile, and type out another text.

“This would be a lot more fun if you were here, you know.”

“Of course it would.”

I can’t eat another bite. But I consider asking if they possibly serve canelazo for dessert.

“Someday,” I type out as the waitress clears my plate, “We’ll come to Ecuador together. And we’ll share a rat.”

“I can hardly wait.”