this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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Mildly Interesting
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Guinea pigs were bred as livestock by the Inca in South America. They used to be a dish reserved for nobility but now us plebs have access to Cuy in the supermarket. π
Some people still do raise them for food π
When you've got not fridge and the environment isn't always condusive to curing and preserving meat, it's very handy to raise an animal that's a smaller amount of meat (say one meal) than something like a goat, pig, chicken or cow.
They breed easily and rapidly, eat scraps and vegetation that humans normally don't. So folks keep a herd of Guinea pigs and just slaughter whatever they need for a meal.
It's very clever and much more environmentally friendly than clearing forest for larger animals.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, eat small mammals.
Got it, updated for 2023.
That they would be reserved for nobility seems like it must be wrong. These are tiny animals that wouldn't take much effort to raise. A small family could easily eat one. Just grab a pair and start raising them.
It's not like a cow where you need large amounts of grazing land and then when you kill it, you have huge amounts of meat to deal with.
This is why animals in English have three names. One for the animal, raised by the commoners with Germanic origin (cow). One for the meat, eaten by the wealthy with French origin due to the Norman conquest (beef). And one used in scientific contexts coming from Greek or Latin (bovine)
My guess would be the meat to prep work ratio. Smaller game seems like it would be more effort to skin and clean vs. larger ones like turkeys and deer. Just a guess however, anyone know for sure?
It's surely not any different than a squirrel, ground hog, or wild rabbit. People eat those all the time. Even meat rabbits seem comparable in size to a guinea pig. You can also just put them in a stew.
Also, as I mentioned, larger animals are also more difficult because you can't just kill one for dinner. If you kill a deer, you have to process it to preserve it or share it with a larger community. Ain't no freezers.
Side anecdote: My grandfather, as a 9 year old, used to go squirrel hunting and bring them home for his mom to cook. Before you go thinking this is some redneck thing, it was long island, less than 50 miles from Manhattan. It would have been during the war though.
In hindsight my hypothesis seems pretty silly now yeah. Squirrel and rabbit aren't really considered rich people food here in Pennsylvania, that's for sure :P Rabbit is delicious. Still have yet to try squirrel as I don't know any hunters (I'd gotten the rabbit from a farmer's market)
Your gramps was a champ. The most useful thing I ever brought home around 9 years old was wild garlic.
He was a really cool guy.
What's amusing to me is that lobster is now (sort of) considered rich people food, but it used to be the food fed to slaves and the extremely poor.
Maybe not "reserved" but eaten less frequent? Let's say a poor peasant during that time owned 10 guinea pigs and had the choice to either slaughter one of the little guys for one single meal, or sell some to the higher-ups and buy less expensive food that will last for a week or two, then it would make sense if the peasants ate less of them than nobility even if it wasn't explicitly forbidden.
Why doesn't chicken have a different name for the meat
Because the poor peasants could afford to eat it and the French version (would be poulet or something like that) never caught on.
Sorry. That was supposed to be in the original comment, but I guess I forgot.
I've had cuy in PerΓΊ. It's pretty good and unsurprisingly not unlike rabbit. It's not much meat considering the amount of work.
Plebs live like past nobility everywhere.