The head is the ‘best part’

[Dave W]

Grilled guinea pigs are this NYC restaurant's shocking specialty

Looks appetizing!

[uwe]

I've eaten it in Chile in a Peruvian restaurant. It doesn't look much different on a plate to rabbit or hare served complete




which I like as well. It actually tastes like it too. Long before guinea pigs became pets they were livestock in South America (where they initially come from), a peasant dish.

I'd eat one of those in a heartbeat, it looks tasty. Anyone who has ever kept a guinea pig as a pet should know that they make much more sense fried on a plate. A very rudimentary rodent with - unlike, say, a pet rat - low entertainment value.

When did you Yanks become so squeamish  , I've eaten pig's and goat's head often [not really unusual back in the 60s and 70s with German butchers, we basically had "headmeat" ('Wellfleisch')



every Monday when our butcher had freshly slaughtered, those cheeks tasted yummy] - likewise we often had oxtail soup.



To this day, I order my fish in one piece "together with the head" all the time (so does my son) and have enjoyed fruit bat (tastes game-y) in the Seychelles as well as insects and snake in Zaire. Not finding a place where you could get opossum stew when my son and I did a road trip in the Southern US was a real let-down, people thought we were joking.

What we eat and don't eat, find appetizing or not, is all wholly culturally acquired. I generally do as the Romans.

[Pilgrim]

Hey, we Yanks have both gourmet dishes: burgers AND cheeseburgers!

[uwe]

I know, sigh. You don't like to recognize what you eat.

[Dave W]

I'd eat it. I may have already. Next door neighbors are Ecuadoran. They've seved some kind of delicacy meat at special occasions where they've invited the neighbors (e.g. their daughter's quinceañera). I'll ask.

[uwe]

Just don't take the dog with you.

[Dave W]

  

They like dogs and other pets.

They have chickens, strictly for eggs (allowed here) -- and a couple have escaped into my back yard. If Joy should be out in the yard, it will be chicken dinner time for her.

[uwe]

That has become a popular thing in Germany too, even in suburban areas, keeping chickens for eggs. It had somewhat died out here from the late 60s onwards (except on farms in rural areas), but a lot of things come in cycles. Good for the chickens at least. A friend of mine keeps some chickens and his young teen daughter Marlene takes her favorite one with her wherever she goes (mostly to the neighbor boy) - the bird, miraculously, doesn't mind being carried around.

[Pilgrim]

My dad was born in 1919 and their family had chickens for a while. He swore that he would never have chickens again, and I've never felt differently. That's a lot of trouble for a very small benefit.   

[uwe]

My wife grew up with chickens too and she hates them! "They're dumb and they're mean-spirited!" she says.   

[Dave W]

But chickens are pure profit!

NSFW (language)