Part III-Food

Food and I currently have a love/hate relationship. This is mainly because I ended up eating lunch twice the other day and was pretty much unable to move the whole day. Lunch number one was with my neighbor, Susana, and her family with whom I ate lunch with all last week. Lunch was cuy. Yup, I finally tried it. What is cuy? Well if you’re in the states head to your neighborhood pet store and you’ll find them. One of those cuddly little guinea pigs was my lunch. Cuy is pretty much a national dish of Peru and is most popular in the sierra where I happen to be so it was only a matter of time before I tried it. Actually, Peace Corps strongly encourages the promotion of cuy rearing because it’s a good way for households to earn money and cuy is ridiculously high in protein for such a small animal and it’s cheap. Overall not too impressed I have to say. It’s really hard to eat, greasy and I have to say gnawing on what is visibly a little animal’s leg doesn’t do much for me. Then someone starts in on the cuy head and that is just not appetizing at all. It’s considered like the best part and literally looks like a fried small animal’s head….because it is.


Lunch number two was with my host family who came back from Lima. I had already told Susana I would eat with them but felt bad not eating with my host family since it would be our first meal together. So after finishing my plate of cuy leg, potatoes, and trigo (not exactly sure on the translation but basically a grain) I hurried over to down another plate of food. This time a bowl of bean soup, huge plate of rice, tuna mixed with onions, French fries and a plate of grapes. I literally have no clue where I put all that food but here it’s offensive not to eat all your food, especially here in the sierra.

This was not the first time I’ve eaten past what I thought was possible. Everywhere I go someone is inviting me to eat or drink something and saying no is just straight up rude. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so full for so long. Although I can’t say I’m completely innocent. I found a store in Cajamarca that had peanut butter and have eaten more than I care to admit.

Now the lastest addition of ¨What´s Kim Eating!

Breakfast-
-Coffee which comes in these disolvable flakes, kinda odd.
-Bread and cheese, yes the cheese is good
-Mix of eggs and rice
-Drinkable yogurt, its huge in Peru

Lunch-The school sold lunch after one of the anniversary events
-Steak! ...with mayonaise on top?
-Carrots, beets, and cabbage
-Potatoes with a spicy cheesy sauce and a spicy peanutty sauce

Dinner-
-Yogurt
-Jello
-Fried Egg with Rice
-Apple
-Tea of Hierva Luisa, apparently great for any of your health related issues