4th Annual Cuy Festival

At the Cuy Festival (Guinea Pig Festival) families from San Marcos and neighboring towns bring there biggest and best guinea pigs for competitions in weight and also in dishes that include guinea pigs. The dish most common in this part of Peru is called “Picante de Cuy” which is fried guinea pig with potatoes and a spicy peanut sauce. Some of the contestants made new variations such as taking Peruvian recipes that use other meats and adding cuy instead, like soup (Aguadita de Cuy), stuffed potatoes (Causa de Cuy), or a typical dish using onions, potatoes, and a vinegar sauce called Escabeche de Cuy and some not quite so typical dishes like Pizza de Cuy or Cuy al Barro (kind of like an individual sized pachamanca.) There is a competition for these dishes as well, based on taste, creativity, etc. And, I was a judge!
Yep, I got to try twenty different guinea pig dishes and with three other judges, appoint first through third place.
At the end of all the competition, the organization Sodehxo prepared a cuy buffet. They had everything from cuy wrapped in wonton dough and fried (like a small eggroll?), shish-kabobs, and “cuy al oriental” which was like something you’d find at panda express, with snap peas and a sweet teriyaki sauce. Not quite your average Peace Corps site, right? The Sodehxo training center is actually for the mine. They actually built a school to train people about carpentry, hotel management, and culinary arts so that they can work at the mine.
They also made a display of a wedding cake with a bride and groom at the top that were fried (maybe roasted?) guinea pigs dressed up in a dress and tux. Eww…