8:46am UK, Monday July 21, 2008
Guinea pigs wearing Peruvian local dresses at the Guinea pig food festival
The celebration of the 'cuy', as guinea pigs are known in the Andes, also included contests for the biggest, fastest, best-dressed and, finally, tastiest animal of all.
While the lucky guinea pigs at the festival escaped with only the indignity of being turned into kings, miners and Peruvian peasants for the day, the less fortunate ended up on a plate.
Guinea pigs are native to the high Andes and their low-fat meat has been an important source of protein for thousands of years.
Farmers and chefs gathered and presented dishes of guinea pig fried, grilled, or baked with generous helpings of Andean potatoes and large Peruvian corn called choclo.
Some cooks chopped off the head and paws - cuy is traditionally served whole in the Andes - in the hope that it would sell better among foreigners for whom the fluffy rodents were once childhood pets.
"Here we are trying to show all the work implied, their breeding, their diet, how we can get a better product, we are trying to present it to the world so that people don't have any prejudices," said chef Pilar Fox.
"This is also to give an incentive to the communities who breed Guinea Pigs so they can see that it is a way of life, if they can get a good product they can sell it and try to enter in the international markets," she explained.
According to those who tasted the meat, it is a cross between rabbit and dark chicken meat.
Guinea pigs are common in rural Andean households as they are reliable income generators - they breed so quickly that whenever a family needs money, it can sell off a dozen or so.
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