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Venezuela's giant rodent cuisine

by zarnigar | 3 years, 1 month(s) ago

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Maira

While in many countries the Easter dish may be lamb, in Venezuela a traditional delicacy around this time of the year is the capybara, the world's biggest rodent. The capybara is a distant cousin to the common guinea pig but bigger and river-based like a beaver. Many Venezuelans regard the semi-aquatic creature as more fish than meat - a useful description during Lent when it is eaten as a replacement for red meat in this largely Roman Catholic country. High demand in the run-up to Easter, combined with widespread poaching and illegal hunting, means the "chiguire", as it is called in Venezuela, is now under threat in some parts of the country. "It's not on the endangered species list yet," says Deborah Bigio of Fudena, an environmental NGO. "But there are a number of factors putting pressure on its numbers," she says, first and foremost illegal hunting in the run-up to Easter. "The main issue, here in Venezuela at least, is that this meat is being harvested especially in the days leading up to Holy Week... People don't eat beef during these days and so that's the main market which is pushing the demand for chiguire." Some of the people involved in supplying that demand are Ricardo and his wife. They run a fishmongers in the Pinto Salinas market in Calabozo, a hot, sleepy town in the rural state of Guarico, some 300km (186 miles) from Caracas. Ricardo has a steady supply of chiguire meat to sell to his eager customers. Like most chiguire vendors in Venezuela, Ricardo sells meat supplied by poachers. But he is well aware of the risks involved. "We sell chiguires here in Guarico but it's contraband," he tells me, while producing examples of the dry, grey meat from a bag hidden under the counter. "It's a species at risk so you can't sell it too publicly. The national guard could put me in jail." Indigenous roots Working in the illegal trade worries Ricardo's wife, but she says they have little choice. "I do feel uncomfortable selling chiguire meat," she says "but I have to do it as I don't have any other work or source of income. We try to buy just a little so we can make a profit. But we've no choice - it's our livelihood."
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