One of the most interesting aspects of travelling is tasting the myriad unusual food and beverage options available to the brave, curious, or just plain crazy. Most of the weird and wonderful cuisine I’ve tried over the years has involved the ingestion of animals or animal products that I wouldn’t expect to see on my everyday dinner plate, so vegetarians beware, this blog might not be the most enjoyable 900 words you’ve ever read!
Llama With a Side of Tears- Bolivia
I’ve always been ‘vegetarian-leaning’ (i.e. I like the idea of not harming animals for my eating pleasure, but I’m too lazy and too much of a slave to my taste buds to stick to my principles for long. Bacon isn't actually made from pig, is it? Surely it's a foodstuff in its own right!). So, I’ve rejected meals more than once in the past on the basis that I couldn’t stop thinking of the animal that I was being asked to chow down upon, but on a day to day basis gluttony usually helps keep my imagination at bay.
My mistake in Bolivia, I guess, was attempting to eat a llama steak after a few lovely days of interacting with these gorgeous creatures. We'd been driving through the arid Bolivian countryside and stopping to pat lovely llamas, black, white and brindle and observing herds trotting ever so cutely up the hills in search of sustenance. And a night walk in the absolute pitch black of the Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Plains) actually brought me face to face with these silent, mellow creatures. All I could see was their eyes glowing a magnificently weird fluorescent green and all I could hear was their huffing breaths. I wasn't scared but rather fascinated.
Given the affinity I had just enjoyed with these animals I probably shouldn't have ordered the llama steak with a side of quinoa but I like to do as the locals do and to support indigenous farming initiatives so I gave it a try. And I have to admit that Bolivia's national symbol, although a little tough, made rather an enjoyable meal- if you don't count the fact that I cried though most of it!
Guinea Pig Science Class Flashback- Peru
To me a guinea pig is a cute family pet that runs in interminable circles on a mini exercise wheel and wiggles its cute little nose as it nibbles on lettuce leaves. To Peruvians, however, this rodent is a traditionally important protein source and can be found on the menu all over the country- over 50 million cuoy are eaten annually! I struggled with my fried guinea pig meal from the moment I observed that it had been served whole, (save for having its belly opened), splayed on its back, just like the rats ready to be dissected in Science class at school. My teacher allowed me to sit out of those lessons way back then and looking at my spread-eagled dinner lying on a bed of rice, corn and salad, I wished I could be excused again. I did gamely have a go at eating my meal, but I have to say it's a fiddly effort to manoeuvre little bits of rabbit flavoured meat from amongst all of those tiny bones and the memory of looking at the guinea pig's hairy, toothy face while I laboured away over my meal means I won't be going out of my way to taste Peru's signature dish again any time soon.
Animal Poo Coffee- Sumatra, Indonesia
I’d like to know who thought of this idea and volunteered to try it first! OK, so stay with me on this one. Basically, a cute Indonesian marsupial, the Asian Palm civet, or as it is locally known- a luwak, eats the choicest cocoa beans and proceeds to defecate said beans. This is where it gets interesting because then, for some reason relating to the effects of the digestive process, coffee growers collect the civet faeces and proceed to make coffee out of it! And this is the most expensive coffee in the world.
If you have the cash, you coffee aficionados may have already imbibed this concoction in the comfort of your home or local café. If you’ve ordered a Kopi Luwak then you definitely have! I'd heard of this stuff before, and had previously had no desire to pay an inordinate amount of money to drink animal poo liquid, and I'd also had ethical issues around the burgeoning caged civet farming I'd heard about. Not only does it sound awful to keep the animals locked up, but feeding these civets cocoa beans in cages also actually eliminates the other element that apparently makes this coffee so sought after: the fact that the civet always selects the best beans to eat. I ended up trying this coffee, though, because the owners of the hotel I was staying in near Lake Toba told me the story of where and how they acquire their locally and ethically produced supply and it also was only a few rupiah more expensive then the regular stuff. Was it worth the extra cash?
Well, to me it tasted chalky and had a weird, slightly too thick consistency. Maybe I couldn't remove the thought of excrement from my mind or perhaps I'm just a coffee primitive who should stick to her skinny flat whites, but it really wasn't that great. This was a classic case of acquiring a 'one time I drank coffee that was made out of animal dung' tale.
If travelling is about taking yourself out of your comfort zone, I can safely say that I’ve done that on a number of occasions just by ordering something unusual or even a little bit freaky from the menu. It's fun to try things once; and there's no rule saying you ever have to try it again!
Written by Lynda Roderick
Culture & Lifestyle Journalist - Currency Today
