Long before I met a guy in Peru who studies neurocysticercosis, I avoided eating pork. My homeopath said it was too similar to humans, that disease passes too easily between the two, and that made it dangerous to eat. My homeopath told me lots of crap, but for some reason the not eating pork thing stuck.Generic “health concerns” became my reasoning. Muslims don’t eat it, Hindus don’t eat it, and Jews don’t eat it. And I’m a big believer in there usually being a good reason why multiple cultures all decide to eat or not eat something, whether they know the science behind it or not. Like the three sisters – squash, beans and corn being a complete protein. Mexicans and Peruvians aren’t about to show you the make-up of a protein to prove their point. Fewer people died. More seemed healthy. So it stuck.
But nowadays there’s usually some kind of science involved when you’re looking into an issue, and after a little research into the fun, epilepsy-causing disease, even the idea of relatively harmless tapeworms in my gut was enough to turn my stomach. The fact that neurocysticercosis (and often eventual death or a life of no fun pills) is caused by a tapeworm infection which is itself caused by eating undercooked pork that contains the larval cysts of the tapeworm certainly encouraged that revulsion.
It’s a real word, google – neurocysticercosis. Get over it.
So independent of how much I like this charming researcher, I’m off pork, and have been for a long time. It actually probably brought us together, this eschewing of bacon.
But one of the other questionably hygienic meat products in Peru is guinea pig. And that I did eat. Once. It wasn’t amazing. In Huaraz they eat a lot of guinea pig, though, and goat. They have some alpacas and they have some other easy-to-raise animals, but easiest of all are guinea pigs. So at the market in Huaraz there was tons of lake trout (the only sort of local fish, and they didn’t have much other fish at all – locavores by necessity, not by choice), a bunch of pigs and pig parts, and guinea pig. You won’t be surprised that I bought the trout by process of elimination…
But I sure took pictures of the guinea pig. All skinned and displayed fairly nicely for a Peruvian meat market. Sanitation is not what it is in North America. But that’s a big reason why there’s neurocysticercosis in the first place.
I also took a picture of some of the fun bits of beef (tripe, whole head).
Snout to tail eating. Again, by necessity, not devotion to granola-loving, canvas bag-toting, recycled sneakers-wearing locavorism, as demonstrated below:
Morals of the story:
1. Don’t eat undercooked pork, eat less pork in general, if any, and know where it comes from (not somewhere in proximity to humans, preferably, because there are all kinds of other delicious parasites it contains too, and lots of fun mutating ones that make the jump from animals to humans a little too easily with pigs).
2. Try guinea pig. Just once. Also cook it very well because I saw it runing around on the street at the Gamarra MArket in Lima once. A man had a bunch in a little canvas basket and he let them loose to entertain the onlookers before stuffing them back in the basket to sell. It’s completely illegal, which is why he wouldn’t let me tak a picture. But I would not eat Gamarra market street guinea pigs and am thus scared to eat any guinea pigs because I don’t know where they’ve walked, what they’ve eaten, or how clean they are. I also will avoid guinea pig tartar should I ever come across it.
3. Meet a man or woman who shares your common interests and dislikes, especially if they involve parasites. Cook rice and lentils with him or her. Those are fairly safe, though you should discuss the water used to grow those things, as it could have been contaminated with pig feces, and contain tapeworm larvae. You could still get neurocysticercosis and be a vegetarian! But it would be much, much less likely than, say, if you were Martin Picard, if he lived in Peru, that is, and didn’t only cook lovingly raised Gaspor pork or other high quality products.
4. Avoid salad and unwashed fruit for the same water-related reasons as above, but definitely eat amazing green Peruvian figs with this amazing man or woman after washing the fruit in fruit disinfectant. I think sometimes that life is not worth living without green Peruvian figs.
5. Praise immigration that sprays fruit coming into Canada and the US. Hate that for what they spray with, but thank them for killing off a lot of parasites and reducing the chance of getting an infectious disease from imported food. Always wash your fruit from the grocery store. You don’t know what cow blood-covered market floor it touched before it got to your kitchen. Scared? Worried? Concerned that life will be no fun? See step 3. The first two sentences of that point are exceptionally fun.
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