Peruvian Guinea Pig Festival Ends Sadly for Animals

An annual contest for the fastest, fattest, best dressed and lastly, tastiest Guinea Pig goes on annually in the town of Huacho, Peru. The Festival of the Guinea Pig consists of dressing guinea pigs as Kings, Peasants, Miners, traditional folk singers as well as being dressed like they were in the latest fashion show. They are dressed in costumes to impress the judges and win the costume portion of the Festival.

This may sound cute until you realize that the little hats they are wearing on their furry little heads are held on by stapling the hat to the head of the Guinea Pigs.

After the Guinea Pig fashion show, the Cavies, as they are also called, are taken out of their costumes and cooked in various ways. The most common are to bake, fry or roast over an open fire.

The Guinea pigs are served whole on a plate, complete with head, paws, intestines and claws still intact. The Guinea pigs are accompanied with tomato, cucumber and various garnishes. A plate filled with a whole baked or fried Guinea Pig along with rice and garnishes will cost you about $7.00 American money, or 20 soles Peruvian money.

The correct way to eat this dish is to pick the roasted Guinea pig up whole and suck the meat off the bones. In Peru where this festival was taking place, it is not uncommon to eat guinea pig.

Now that tourists are coming to the Festival more often, some of the guinea Pigs are being cooked without their heads or paws, to make them more palatable to the tourists. Some tourists may cringe at the thought of being served a baked Guinea Pig who looks much like their beloved pet at home, but many people come to the festival for the chance to eat the critters and try their hands at winning the costume contest.

One visitor at the Festival, Juan Rojas said, "Guinea Pig meat is very nourishing and contains lots of vitamins and other things."

In the U.S thousands of small children have Guinea Pigs as pets and most people could not eat an animal that was served whole on their plate. But in Peru, they eat thousands of Guinea pigs each year, it seems what we see as pets, they see as dinner.