Travels of A Lonely Writer

As a vegetarian of over a decade it has always been remarked upon that I have a distinct lack of squeamishness. I rarely squirm at the sight of certain ‘delicacies’ at which my friends might baulk and have always been of the opinion that if you’re going to eat meat you may as well eat it all.
I don’t know if it was the fact that I had just emerged from two weeks of living in the Amazon Jungle, where I had seen little more than the stockpile of rice we took with us and the fruit that was growing there, or if it was the fact that, over the years, I had kept several of the little beasts as pets but seeing a whole roasted Guinea Pig was something that made me a little green around the gills. The striking thing that stuck with me was how it was presented. Mouth agape with it’s goofy-esque front teeth protruding rather aggressively as though it were in a stance of attack was particularly strange as I can’t imagine people wanting to chomp down on something that looks like it could bite back. It was this little fella’ though, that quintessentially summed up the food culture of Peru.
A cuisine born out of famine and necessity, where most Europeans would find a rodent, too small to provide much sustenance and too ‘cute’ to be eaten but rather kept and cuddled as an accompaniment to the family life, the Peruvian people found an easily accessible food source. They are survivors and were not about to get sentimental about something that provides a rare fount of protein. My own dietary requirements had been easy to keep throughout my travels across the country as the locals very rarely had meat, it was hard to come by and expensive. I questioned a fellow traveller, who was brave enough to dine on the minute mammal, about the dish to which his reply was “Boney.” Even this little libation didn’t offer up much in the way of something to chew on.
I myself settled for something that looked remarkably like a Cornish pasty that oozed out a thick layer of cheese and had a smattering of chopped onions throughout. “Empanada” said the man serving me. He proudly told me, with a gleeful smile, that it was a traditional South American dish and you would be hard pushed to find anything like it anywhere else in the world. I didn’t spoil his fun by pointing out I could get something very similar back home even if we didn’t deep fry it. “Just shut up and enjoy your food,” I thought. That advice served me well.