Eating Cuy (Guinea pig) in Lima

A little hole in the wall family restaurant with very good barbecued ribs,  chicken, and cuy

Today we went to a locally recommended barbecue place that also serves guinea pig. I tried both the pork ribs and the guinea pig and I have to say both dishes were excellent. In Peru and other Andean countries these rodents are called cuy. They do not exist in the wild but were domesticated and bred for their meat thousands of years ago. It is such a delicacy the animal was usually reserved for ceremonial meals by the indigenous peoples of the Andean highlands. Lately though it has become more socially acceptable for consumption by anyone including us gringos. It continues to be a major part of the diet in the highland areas of Peru, though not as easily found on restaurant menus here in Lima. Because cuy require much less room than traditional farm animals and reproduce very quickly they remain a more profitable source of food and income than many traditional stock animals.

This was my cuy just before being put into the oven. 

Whats does it taste like? Well, it does taste like chicken, such as the dark meat. I have to say I enjoyed enough that I would order it again and lieu of barbecued chicken which we get a lot of here anyway. Cuy meat is high in protein and low in fat and cholesterol. It has been described to me as tasting like rabbit but I think it is better. We had the cuy roasted in an oven. This style is called 'al horno.'

The chips are sliced potatoes on site and served hot from the frier

Peruvians consume an estimated 65 million guinea pigs each year, according to Wiki, and the animal is so entrenched in the culture that one famous painting of the Last Supper in the main cathedral in Cusco shows Christ and the twelve disciples dining on cuy. The animal remains an important aspect of certain religious events in both rural and urban areas of Peru.

It was hot and just out of the horno or masonry oven

Further, work is being done at research universities here in Peru, with the intention of breeding larger-sized cuy. I must have had one of these larger sized cuy as there was a significant amount of meat. Subsequent university efforts have sought to change breeding and husbandry procedures in South America, in order to make the raising of guinea pigs as livestock more economically sustainable. Beginning In the 1990s and 2000s, Peru began exporting the larger breed of cuy to the States, Europe and Japan with the hope of increasing human consumption outside of the Andean region of South America.