Hello Old Friend, no. 2

I was thinking that I could turn my previous posts Hello old friend and A High-Class Blog into Recurring Blog Features …Columns? Is that what they’re called? That seems excessive/inaccurate. We’ll go with the more vague Feature (I am The Archaeologist’s Wife afterall, and these are, ostensibly, field notes).

So, here is the second installment of Hello Old Friend, a new Seymour Chase Blog Feature:

The Archaeologist’s brother came down and stayed with us for much of May and a bit of June. It was great to have him around (please come visit us!!!). A couple days before he was scheduled to leave, we decided to get serious about site-seeing/Peru-experiencing/etc. So we crammed a bunch of museums, cathedrals, catacombs, historic districts, humungous fountains, and archaeological ruins into those last few days. I also arranged for us to eat this:

That’s a guinea pig – well, half a guinea pig; we weren’t that hungry.

It’s been 28ish years since I last saw the guinea pig at Mesa Montessori. I don’t remember its name (nor the gender). I don’t recall any tearful good-byes. Actually, I don’t think we ever really hit it off – no ill will or anything …I mean, I didn’t make plans to eat it someday. But that being my succeeding guinea pig experience, I could see how Mesa Montessori guinea pig might take it personally. I’m sure it envisions me saying “Hello old friend” like Hannibal Lecter said “Hello, Clarice”. But I swear it wasn’t like that. It’s just bad timing. There was a lot on my plate. It’s not you; it’s meat. (that last one was for you, Chris)

Now guinea pig (cuy) isn’t typical Limeña food. Lima is a great big modern city and Limeños are citified. It’s apparently one of the new gastronomical “it” places (that’s a thing, right?). But many Limeños were not always Limeños, and occasionally they long for the food from their previous highland home. So thus our opportunity to eat it.

Basically it tasted like chicken - like a chicken wing with the high bone to meat ratio, just a tad gamier.

I also gave a few pieces to Half-O. I figure it’ll be a good story to tell her when she gets older …and goes to preschool.