Before we travel anywhere, Sarah and I always do our research.

What should we see?
Where should we go?
And, most importantly, what are we supposed to eat while we’re there?

So before Peru, we started looking up all the local foods we should try.

That’s when we came across something called cuy.

Neither of us knew what it was.

So we Googled it.

Guinea pig.

We stared at the screen.

Excuse me?

As in the cute little furry thing you had as a classroom pet growing up?

Because suddenly this felt less like “trying the local cuisine” and more like “eating something that should have a tiny water bottle attached to its cage.”

Thankfully, further research made us feel slightly better. In the Andean highlands, guinea pigs aren’t traditionally kept as pets the way they are back home. They’re raised as livestock and have been eaten there for centuries.

Okay.

So no one was sneaking into a Peruvian child’s bedroom and whispering, Sorry, Fluffy. It’s dinner time.

That helped.

A little.

I decided I needed to think of it like eating deer back home. Deer are cute. We take pictures of them. People also eat them.

Same concept.

Sort of.

I still wasn’t eating the guinea pig.

But Sarah, being the adventurous eater of our marriage, decided she was absolutely going to try it.

So at one of the first restaurants we went to in Cusco, there it was on the menu.

Cuy.

Sarah ordered it.

I ordered something considerably less likely to arrive with a recognizable face.

A little while later, the waiter started walking toward our table with Sarah’s plate.

And as he got closer, both of our eyes got bigger.

And bigger.

Because apparently there had been one very important detail missing from our research:

They serve the whole damn guinea pig.

Not a filet.

Not something breaded enough that you could pretend you had no idea what animal it came from.

The entire thing was stretched out across Sarah’s plate.

Head.

Body.

Little legs.

Face.

Teeth.

All of it.

And the skin somehow made the whole situation even worse.

It was smooth and shiny, almost like a piece of brown leather had been stretched over the entire guinea pig.

It looked less like food and more like the guinea pig had been through some kind of extremely unfortunate tanning process.

And of course, because the universe has a sense of humor, its head was pointed directly at me.

I couldn’t stop looking at it.

Its little sunken eyes seemed to be staring across the table like:

Really?

You two came all the way from America for this?

I immediately felt like I needed to explain myself.

Then I noticed the teeth.

Two little buck teeth sticking right out of its mouth.

Except they were completely black from the charcoal.

And this is where something went very wrong in my brain.

Because instead of thinking, There is an entire roasted guinea pig lying on our table, I looked at those two blackened buck teeth and thought:

Well, those look terrible.

So for reasons I still cannot explain, I reached over and started scratching the black off its little teeth.

Maybe I thought cleaner teeth would somehow make the whole thing less disturbing.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

And sure enough, underneath all that black were two little white teeth.

I sat back and looked at my work.

There.

Much better.

It was not better.

Now the dead guinea pig was staring at me with a brighter smile and the complexion of a leather loafer.

Apparently I had decided that if Sarah was going to eat it, the least I could do was send it out with decent teeth.

When the waiter originally brought it out, he had asked Sarah if she wanted him to cut it up.

Sarah, who was clearly still trying to process the fact that her entrée had arrived with its entire anatomy intact, automatically said:

“No.”

So he walked away.

And there we sat.

Sarah.

Me.

And the guinea pig.

The three of us just quietly taking in the moment.

Every few seconds Sarah would look at it.

Then at me.

Then back at it.

Neither of us seemed to know how this was supposed to begin.

Because saying, “I’m adventurous enough to eat guinea pig,” is one thing.

Figuring out where to stick your fork when the guinea pig is making eye contact with you is another.

Finally, after several minutes, Sarah gave up.

She called the waiter back.

“Actually…can you cut it?”

Yes.

Excellent idea.

Take it away.

Make it look like food.

We watched the plate disappear into the kitchen and finally relaxed.

Problem solved.

A few minutes later, the waiter returned.

The cuy had been chopped into pieces.

Well…

Most of it had.

Because for reasons I will never understand, they had chopped up the entire body…

and left the head completely intact.

There it was.

Still sitting on the plate.

Still facing me.

Still sporting the beautiful dental work I had just provided.

Apparently the kitchen’s philosophy was:

We’ll handle the legs and torso.

The emotional trauma is your responsibility.

At this point I was convinced that no matter how many times they took that plate into the kitchen, that head was coming back.

Sarah finally picked up a piece.

I watched her.

She took a bite.

Chewed.

Paused.

I leaned forward.

“Well?”

After everything we’d just been through, I was expecting something exotic.

Gamey.

Different.

A flavor worthy of the psychological journey we had just endured.

Sarah swallowed.

Then said:

“It kind of tastes like turkey.”

Turkey.

We had researched Peruvian livestock traditions.

We had reassured ourselves that nobody’s childhood pet had been harmed.

We had stared into the sunken eyes of dinner.

We had examined skin that looked like it belonged in a leather goods department.

I had personally provided complimentary dental care to the entrée.

The kitchen had performed what appeared to be a partial guinea pig autopsy.

And after all of that…

it tasted like turkey.

Sarah continued eating.

I did not.

I felt I had already participated enough in the meal.

Sarah ate the cuy.