Cone or scoop: Guinea pig ice cream for sale in Ecuador
Like 0 Dislike 0 Published on 9 Oct 2019
(4 Oct 2019) LEAD IN
Anyone for guinea pig flavoured ice cream ?
Folks who think of guinea pigs as pets _ cute, squishy, squeaking bundles of fur _ might find that idea hard to digest.
But one enterprising woman in Ecuador is serving them up as a chilly treat.
STORY-LINE
This cute fluffy creature may be a popular pet in in many countries - but a woman in Ecuador has found a whole different purpose for it.
Maria del Carmen Pilapana owns an ice cream shop in Quito, and is now serving up guinea pigs as an ingredient in her sweet treats.
The rodents are a traditional hot dish in some Latin American countries, including Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
In Ecuador, people typically cook guinea pigs with salt and serve them with potatoes and peanut sauce. But Pilapana is taking things to another gastronomic level.
"I use from the head down (of the guinea pig). I put in everything except the bones. All of the meat. Skin, everything. I do a pate, more or less, to mix it," says Pilapana, referring to to animal known locally as "cuy".
After serving it up to two of her customers one of them, Susana Duque, says:
"Ice cream variety is always important. And more than anything, trying it, experimenting, with guinea pig, beetle (in quechua) really it doesn't make a difference for the ice cream. More than anything you note the fruit and the cream. It's very good, I recommend it."
Pilapana's offbeat offering often inspires disbelief and laughter among first-time customers.
Her operation is small. It consists of two tables in an open area lined with dentists’ clinics and other businesses. Even so, demand is growing. Every week, the entrepreneur prepares 150 servings (1 US dollar for a cone) of guinea pig ice cream.
She also makes 40 servings of ice cream flavoured with beetles, also traditionally eaten as a salty snack, and a smaller amount of mushroom ice cream.
Pilapana says she collects the beetles herself:
"I go at 4 in the morning. I go to the mountain up high to collect them (the beetles) in the wilderness. At a quarter to five in the morning, we get it (the beetles), we bring it. I get to my house at 6 in the morning," she explains.
Pilapana adds that her family initially thought she was crazy and admits that she had her own doubts about whether her investment would pay off.
It was a close call. Out of work, with three children in tow, Pilapana began attending free training courses for entrepreneurs. She was challenged to do something innovative and, after six months of testing, she starting selling her range of ice creams at the beginning of September.
Pilapana manages to concentrate guinea pig flavour after cooking and preparing a pate from the animal’s flesh, adds milk or cream and refrigerates the concoction until it has the rough consistency of ice cream. The taste is similar to chicken.
The beetle and mushroom ice creams include fruits such as pineapple and passion fruit. Beetle ice cream has a slight aroma of wet earth.
Ants, cicadas and worms are used to make some desserts, often chocolate-infused ones, in parts of Latin America. But incorporating such ingredients _ guinea pigs included _ into ice cream is unusual.
For Pilapana, guinea pig ice cream is just the beginning. She has new flavours in mind: crab, chicken and pork.
"It's going well for me," she says. "Everything has happened so that I've been able to keep selling."
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