the shit i've eaten

It seems I've been sampling all sorts of delicacies these days. Maybe I should have been more suspicious based on the meat section of the local market, which is filled with skulls, paws, jaws, and other nastiness I don't hang around to examine closely.

At the clinic here we have a cook who prepares lunch everyday. Usually we have nice normal things like vegetable or quinoa soup followed by pasta, rice, potatoes, fish, or grilled chicken. She usually serves it to us at the table. However one day I came in late and went to serve myself, where I found chiken's feet floating in our vegetable soup. It's unclear how many times I've eaten that without knowing.

Then there are these street stands in the evenings where women set up little grills and cook beef and chicken skewers topped with a potato for just 30 cents. Those little beef skewers are delicious. However, I have now been informed that the "anticuchos" are not pieces of beef leg or rib like I thought. They're little pieces of beef heart. I'm not sure how to feel about them now. They were good, but I'm really not into eating hearts...

Finally, the real kicker came at lunch last week. We had some sort of rice and vegetable mix with chunks of chewy meat in it. It seemed kind of like bad octopus tentacles or something. I reluctantly ate it in hopes of some protein. At the end of the meal, one of the Peruvian doctors says -I haven't eaten moldango (sp?) in a long time.
Me -Oh, what's moldango? A type of octopus?
Her -No, it's cow stomach silly!
Me -hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Me to myself -F me.

P.S. It has been brought to my attention that I forgot to include guinea pig on this list. Guinea pig (cuy) is a huge delicacy of Peru. There are whole farms dedicated to raising the little creatures for the slaughter. I did try this, but I have to say I was not impressed. It was kind of like dark-meat chicken, but with an extremely thick, fatty skin, and those tiny little legs require a lot of work for very little meat yield.