CookingDiva

I decided to capture this screen from my FLICKR account -just in case- GP girl comes back to curse me again or to DELETE her comment.

This is where everything started...My brined guinea pig recipe.

Next time I cook another of her furry friends I will be thinking of her and ...I would not shed a tear...

"revenge of the guinea pigs" that would make a good movie! anyhow, what difference is it what animal you choose to eat? the world is big & diverse. hugs to mel

Thank you Bindifry for your support!

From Wikipedia, Guinea Pigs as Food:

Guinea pigs, or cuy, cuye, curí, were originally domesticated for their meat in the Andes.

As food, the guinea pig is described as a combination of rabbit and the dark meat on chicken, though in colour, taste, and the fineness of bones the gourmet will be reminded of quail. It is high in protein (21%) and low in fat (8%). Due to the fact that they require much less room than traditional livestock and reproduce extremely quickly when compared to traditional stock animals, they can be raised as a source of food in an urban environment—unlike most western livestock animals.

To this day, cuyes continue to be a major part of the diet in Peru and Bolivia, particularly in the Andes Mountains highlands, where they are an important source of protein and a mainstay of Andean folk medicine. Peruvians consume an estimated 65 million Guinea pigs each year, and the animal is so entrenched in the culture that one famous painting of the Last Supper in the main cathedral in Cusco, Peru shows Christ and the twelve disciples dining on guinea pig.

Guinea pigs are also consumed in Ecuador, mainly in the Sierra region of the country, but are not depended upon as a staple source of protein.

Un abrazo,
M

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I am back from Ecuador! This definitely was a sweet and sour trip. Because of the many political protests in the province of Pichincha, where the City of Quito rests, it was impossible to accomplish a few visits planned somewhere else. From my point of view, the protests are a result of the public misinformation. The government officials who are negotiating the TLC (Tratado de Libre Comercio Andino EEUU) a Free Trade Agreement between Colombia-Ecuador-Peru-United States, are not doing a good job informing their people what this agreement is all about. That is the main complaint I have heard everywhere, and also it is being reported every day in the TV local News.

The government struggles by the constant and growing indigenous protests, and explains that all the information, documents and progress are offered in their website. They invite everyone to read about it. Then, I stop for a moment and meditate about the fact that probably 99% of the thousands of the indigenous people protesting do not have a computer, nor have access to the Internet. Or, maybe the problem is that they do not know how to read. Ha! Ironic, right?

Obviously, there is the possibility of the indigenous groups being financed by political groups that won't benefit from the trade agreement in question. The truth is that political instability is once again the everyday meal of the country. So wrong from every point of view.

Now that you've got the news on local politics, how about preparing a delicious and super easy ceviche de concha, or conch ceviche? One characteristic of the Ecuadorian ceviche is that it is very juicy, almost like a cold soup, it is eaten with a spoon! I have also prepared this recipe using fresh oysters and it is definitely a keeper

Cheese making was a skill passed down from generation to generation and cheese was a simple food made at home with the most basic of ingredients and tools.

In Ecuador, specifically in Nanegalito, an Ecuadorian town in the beautiful Andes, the artisan cheese makers use milk from their own animals mostly, an easy way to control the process of cheese making since the beginning. In other words, traceability of the source of the precious main ingredient: milk is implemented. All of the animals are grass-fed, a practice that results in a more rich and flavorful organic milk.

Sometimes they pasteurize the milk, and others work with the raw milk, which in this case is carefully supervised to have low bacterial content. It is interesting to note that the big corporations that process milk commercially are also present in these little towns in the Andes. They purchase the milk from the small dairy farms, test it for bacterial content and then put it all together and send it to a big city where it is processed and becomes the various products for mass consumption domestically and internationally.