- Oh, I feel like I just broke his wrist,
sorry, dude.
- That's his bowling arm too.
- He's a lefty, that's weird.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- What's up y'all, I'm Timothy DeLaGhetto,
and this is "Acquired Taste."
The show where I try to find all types of unique foods
from different cultures and try them out with my friends.
- What immersion! - Mercy
- Oh yeah, really good!
- Today we're in Jackson Heights, NYC,
a multicultural hub where you can find all types of cuisine,
from Latin American, and South Asian countries.
We're here to try to some cuy.
That's a guinea pig.
Yeah, that's right, the little fuzzy, furry,
cute little things.
Now, I know guinea pigs might be raised as pets
in the United States, but in Peru,
they are raised to be eaten.
People in the Andes have been grubbing
on this beloved delicacy for generations.
The guinea pigs are usually roasted whole,
or sometimes fried, and a lot of people
say it kind of tastes like rabbit.
The dish is commonly eaten during religious festivals,
and it's so popular there's even a version
of The Last Supper that shows Jesus
and his apostles grubbing on some guinea pigs.
Today we've got Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix
from "Vanderpump Rules" joining me
to eat some cuy at Urubamba.
I heard that Tom and Ariana
are some pretty adventurous eaters to begin with,
they've even tried iguana pasta.
So I'm super hyped to see what they think of a guinea pig.
Well first things first,
let's go see how this bad boy is made.
- How you doing? - Hey, how are you, Tim?
- Tim, nice to meet you. - How're you doin'?
- Chef Enrique, how long have you been cooking
Peruvian food? - 42 years or so.
- Yeah? - Yeah, my mom was a chef,
but then, I saw my mom getting too tired,
and I slipped into the kitchen.
- Damn, tell me about this cuy.
- Well, I mean it goes back all the way to the Incas.
The nutritional value is fantastic.
The nutritional value is better than your red beef,
your chicken. - Really?
- Yes. - Well see,
that's crazy because I always feel like
there's a lot of animals we're not eating,
and we're missing out on certain nutritional things
they might be bringing to our bodies, you know?
- Yeah, it takes a little kind of getting used to.
My first cuy I had when I was five-years-old.
My grandmother, she used to grow cuys in the roof.
- On the roof?
- Yes, she used to have this little cage there,
and stuff like that.
- Are there just like a lot of guinea pigs
running around Peru or what?
- No, no, no, like everybody just has their own stash.
- How do you prepare it? - I like my cuy in the oven,
mostly on special occasions,
because, well, here it's a little expensive.
- I see. - Over there,
they run like $10 or so a cuy.
Over here, it's more like $27 a cuy.
- $27 for one? - For one wholesale!
- For one little thing? - Wholesale.
- Wholesale, from Costco. - Yes!
- Okay, show me how you prepare this thing.
- Okay, now first, in Peru we're accustomed to eating it
with all the insides, you know like the kidney,
the heart, and all that stuff. - I like that stuff.
- Over here we take 'em out.
Some people really,
they have enough just looking at the animal,
now with all the stuff inside.
- Looking at this right now, is you know,
throwing me off a little bit. - Okay.
- I feel like I'm in science class, you know?
- Like the little frog? - Yeah.
- Yeah, that's it.
- Now, what we have here is salt, cumin, garlic,
(speaking in foreign language), which is also pepper,
and just regular black pepper.
- Okay, why do you think not too many people
eat guinea pig in the United States?
- Well first of all, because they started off as pets.
I used to have guinea pigs as pet, you know,
my kids also.
- Say, his little feet are throwing me off, man.
- Yeah, no, it's the nails are there.
His teeth are there, everything is in there.
That's it, we're ready to put him in the oven.
- Cool, I can't wait to taste this.
I've got some guests coming right now.
I'm excited to see what else you're gonna cook for us
today, and I'm hungry.
- Yeah, well you come to the right place.
- I'm ready to see how little Felix tastes.
- Give it a name, then it gets too personal.
- A little too personal?
All right, we're not gonna name him.
- All right. - I'll see you in a while.
- Hey, hey, hello. - Hey, guys.
- What's up? - My gosh.
- What's up, guys? - Good to see you again.
- Yes. - I'm so excited.
- Are you guys hungry? - I'm starving.
- Yes. - I have not eaten anything
today in preparation for this meal.
- Oh really? - Yeah.
- Do you like Peruvian food though?
- I love Peruvian food.
Ceviche to me is the perfect food, it is flawless.
- Okay, we got some good Peruvian food coming your way.
Some basic stuff and then, you know,
we're gonna work our way up.
'Cause you know, this show is all about expanding
your horizons and your taste buds a little bit.
- I love that. - I'll tell you right now,
the finale of this, I haven't had it either.
- Really? - Yeah!
- So we're all in this together.
- This is like a bonding experience right now.
- I love this. - Okay,
let's bring on the food. - Yes!
- I'm starving. - Hey guys, how are you doing?
- What's up bro, how's it going?
- All good, all good, happy to have you here.
- What do you have for us here?
- We have ceviche mixed up, made with broadfish and seafood,
lime, chilis, some Peruvian corn.
At the coast, for us, ceviche is the one thing
that you will always have,
and also Parihuela,
which is-- - I really wanted this,
'cause this is like my shit.
- It's super traditional with seafood
after a big party night, very good, good pick-me-up.
- Also, there's Olluquito,
which is root vegetable with beef.
Also, some grilled octopus for you.
- Oh, that looks fire.
- And there's, it's made with beef, garlic,
onion, cilantro, you name it.
All right guys, enjoy. - Thank you.
I don't even know where to start.
- Maybe start with your ceviche 'cause--
- Yeah. - You love your ceviche.
- I do, this is incredible.
- It's so good.
You get some tang, some spice.
- You know it's bomb when you take a bite and do the.
- So you guys aren't very picky eaters.
- No.
- Ariana really opened up my eyes
when it came to different food.
I mean I had never even tried like pad thai,
I'd only had just like basic ramen.
- Oh man, not even the real ramen.
- Yeah, like the package ramen.
- That's a good woman right there.
- She's awesome. - Thanks, guys.
- And that's one of her many, many things.
- When I was little, my mom would make sure
that we were eating like a variety of things,
because she grew up in a family where like,
I feel like there was a lot of picky eating,
and so she was kind of trying to force it,
so that I wouldn't be like that.
- Is there anything that you guys wouldn't eat?
- I'd have a hard time eating something
that was like alive. - M'kay.
- I guess I wouldn't eat like, dog or a cat,
but like if it's like a survival situation,
it's kind of like Tom, you know,
you might start looking real juicy.
- You can eat me if die in the wild.
- Thank you. - Okay.
- What do you think is like your most delicious part
of your body if she was to eat you?
- I would say, my ass.
- Yeah, you know what I was thinking the same thing.
Not about your ass, but my ass.
- Yeah, yeah.
- The bicep might be kind of nice, the calf.
- When you walked in,
I said that to myself. - You do have some meaty legs.
- I was like that boy got good calves, yeah.
- My thighs, I feel like,
would be a good source of protein for a long time.
- Oh yeah, your thighs would be good.
- Cheers to your thigh meat. - Yeah!
- Yeah, cheers to my thigh meat.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- By the way guys, that hot sauce is no fucking joke.
- I see you getting a little red right now, bro.
- Yeah, yeah, it's no joke, man.
- Okay, so this right here, this is like my shit.
It's like a seafood soup thing.
- Ooh okay.
- It's like the essence of some seafood,
like shrimp and shellfish.
It's all up in it. - Oh my gosh.
- Right? - That tastes like,
I'm not from Peru, obviously,
but it tastes like home. - Right.
- You know what I mean, it's very--
- No, I got you, it's comforting.
- Yeah.
- I'm sometimes a little weird about clams,
'cause there was a clam that like didn't open,
and I opened it and ate it.
- You're not supposed to do that.
- Yeah, he got a bad one.
- I didn't know that, see I'm still learning.
- Right, right.
- Sometimes, you just gotta let them learn, you know,
like on their own.
- Yeah, if they don't open by themselves,
you're supposed to leave them alone.
- Yeah, it knocked the cool out of my walk,
let's put it that way.
- He was scarred. - I was.
- Oh my gosh, this is so good.
- Yeah, it's fire.
- That's great though.
- Do you want some?
- I'll take some, I'll take some, thank you.
- Yeah, it's so good.
- Chunks of onions in there,
has a nice little sweetness to it.
- It has a slight Asian vibe to it too.
- You know what, it's crazy that you've said that,
because there's actually a lot of Chinese
and Japanese influence on Peruvian cooking.
- No way! - I didn't know that.
- Yeah. - Oh my gosh.
- A little stir-fry situation, onions and meat, yeah.
How's it working and doing stuff all the time
with your significant other?
- We both bartend and we worked together
for like three years before we were ever even together,
seeing each other, so we'll go back into like,
just work mode. - I got you.
- Like we kind of-- - You don't wanna turn it on
and turn it off. - Yeah, kind of.
- So we have our cocktail book coming out this summer.
- I was just gonna bring that up.
- Yes! - Tell me about your book.
- It's called "Fancy AF Cocktails",
comes out December third,
and it's everything from classy to trashy,
and it's also really, like if you're not a bartender,
if you're not a mixologist,
it's like that's who we wrote the book for
is for your every day non-bartending people
- Damn, that's lit. - Yeah.
- Thanks for that.
- Obviously, you like to go on lots of adventures.
- I feel like there's something coming here.
- I got something adventurous for you.
- Oh wow. - Like I said earlier,
you know, I've never had this either.
And so this right here is a Peruvian delicacy,
and it's called cuy.
Cuy, and before I tell you what it is,
I feel like, let's just look at it.
- Last but not least, cuy for you guys.
- Okay, now please can you tell us about this now.
- Okay, so this is very traditional
from the mountains, okay.
I know it looks a little scary,
but it's actually quite delicious.
Okay, the meat itself is actually also very,
very nutritious, low-fat, very lean.
So, it's good protein.
- Looks like a flying squirrel caught in mid-flight.
- It's butterflied right now,
and yes, it does look like this, yes.
- It's a guinea pig. - It's a guinea pig?
- Wow. - Yeah.
- I had hamsters growing up, so--
- I did too
- Right, right, right.
Just a little different than a hamster.
- It is a little bigger. - Well, one of them bit me
at one point, so this is maybe my revenge.
- This is yeah, this is like the universe
giving you a chance to get your revenge.
- Yeah, really.
- Okay, yeah, so this is very traditional
from the mountains in Peru.
Actually, people have them running around their houses,
and then when it's time to have dinner, you know.
They get one ready.
So, there's actually a funny story about the head.
- Whoa, tell us please.
- So, if you, once you eat it,
and you kind of take it apart,
there's gonna be a really teeny tiny bone
that looks like a fox. - A fox?
- Yes, it's like this big.
It's really, really small.
And it's tradition in Peru to put that in a cup.
Okay, and you serve that with cheech, or beer, or wine,
or any kind of alcohol at a party or whatever,
and then you drink it.
So the person that-- - Swallow it.
- If you take a gulp of the drink,
and you get it in your mouth, that's supposedly good luck.
- All right.
- It's funny looking but it's really, really small.
- It's like up in here somewhere?
- It's inside the head. - Ew.
- Yeah, so you do have to take it apart.
- How would you suggest getting into this.
- We just cut into it?
- Yeah, just cut into it, yes,
so it's gonna have very teeny tiny bones so be careful.
- Be careful, okay. - But, yeah, enjoy.
- Cool, thank you. - Of course.
- All right. - Y'all ready for this?
- I'm ready for this. - Let's do it.
You ready for this? - I'm ready.
- You guys are cool, man. - You know, we're doing it.
- Let's get it.
Well, hey you're my guests, so after you.
- Sure, yeah.
I'll hold his shoulder still.
- But if you block this off,
it just kind of looks like duck.
- Well you know what, that's the thing,
if you don't see his face,
you don't really know what it is anyways.
Oh, he's winking at me. - Oh, yeah.
- Oh, man. - Okay, here we go.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- To cuys. - Cheers to a cuy.
- It's good.
- The meat is actually pretty soft.
- Yeah, the meat is soft.
- The skin-- - The skin is chewy
- Yeah. - It's chewy.
- You ever been to like a luau,
or had lechon, like the pig.
- Yes. - Oh my gosh.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, like the suckling pig.
- Yeah, like a suckling pig.
- It's soft and it kind of tastes
like dark meat, chicken. - Right.
- Little pork, little bit like pork.
- For me it breaks apart like some pork,
for sure, maybe a little hot sauce on there actually.
- Oh yeah, I'm gonna do that too.
I kind of wanna get into, like what's going on here.
- I need more, I need to see what's going on.
- Oh, I feel like I just broke his wrist,
sorry, dude.
- That's his bowling arm too.
- He's a lefty, that's weird.
- My cousin, he's like six-years-old.
He has a pet guinea pig.
- So if you ever accidentally like sit on it or something.
- Well, well then just cook it up.
- We'll have to get this recipe then.
- So this guy right here, they took out all his guts
and intestines and stuff. - Oh, I appreciate that.
- Apparently, in Peru, you know,
they eat all of that in there.
- Really? - Yeah, yeah.
- So, it's like you know, like science class dissection,
but just like eat it. - Bruh, that's literally,
when we were preparing it, that's literally what I said.
What I thought of. - Really?
Should I go after the head?
Off-with-his-head type thing.
- Do it, do it, do it. - All right let's do it.
- Oh my god.
- I'm sorry buddy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, dude.
- Oh yeah, that's intense. - Oh my god.
- All right, now what you gonna do?
- You have to take it apart to get the bone.
- Okay, okay, okay, okay, I'm working on it.
- Okay look, you can have the fox bone
if you find it. - I know, yeah.
- You're doing all the work right now.
- John Travolta, Nicolas Cage,
"Face Off" part two right here.
- You're about to do tradesies with the guinea pig.
- Oh my god. - Oh my gosh.
- Oh my gosh, this is crazy.
- Wow, it's coming off like a "Mission: Impossible" mask.
- Oh god. - Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Oh my god, Tom, oh my.
- This is some Hannibal Lecter shit right here.
- This is good stuff.
- So we can eat this, right.
- Oh my god, what's gotten into you.
- Hey, you are a G, bro.
Hell yeah.
- Tender, wait, is this it?
- Does it look like a fox?
- I think it does.
- Let me see.
- I think it does. Like if you look at it kind of.
- Oh, I see what you're saying.
But what if it's like, you find the bone
that looks like a fox and that's good luck,
and if you find the bone that looks kinda like a fox,
you die. - You die, yeah.
- Alejandro, so I'm going for it.
Is this it right here? - Did he find it?
Is that it?
Is that too big? - No no,
Yeah, it's too big, it's very small.
- It's smaller. - It's gonna be, like,
towards the middle. - So does it look like
the head of a fox or like the full body of a fox.
- Like the full body. - Like what?
All right, let's just get a bunch of guinea pig heads
out here, so I can just dig into them.
- I'll let the kitchen know.
- Oh my god, the brain. - Is that the brain?
- That is the brain. - That is the brain.
- The gray matter, right?
Don't they say that?
- I want some good luck.
- He's like I'll get all the luck I can take.
- Okay, well, I lucked.
- All right, maybe you're not supposed
to have the luck, dude. - Damn.
- Yeah, maybe it's not meant for you.
- I didn't find it, but are we still friends?
- Come on man, shake on it. - Hell yeah, dude.
- Well, hey, look I'm not mad at the cuy at all.
- It was way juicier, more flavorful,
than I would've thought. - Yeah, for sure.
- Like super tender, like a really tender, tiny pork,
you know, with some chewier skin.
- Totally.
- If you bring it out with the feet and the face,
I mean anything looks a little crazy.
- Of course.
It looks a little like, wow okay.
- Well cheers. - Cheers.
- Cheers to you guys. - Hey.
- thanks for coming through.
- Yeah. - My pleasure.
- Shout out to my super special guests,
for coming through.
- Thank you so much for having us.
- I'm still eating.
- And going in on this cuy right here,
you never know, you might like it, you might not.
But at the end of the day, just try it.
You know what I'm saying? - Yeah.
- You know what I'm saying.
Gimme that greasy brain hand.
- Now you have greasy brain hands.
- I do, now we all do.