matacuy
a spirt from a storied saying
On the last episode of…
We’ve been working in Cusco y’all. The grind doesn’t stop and neither do we. We rented our equipment for the hike through the Salkantay Pass from Señora Norma at Speedy Gonzalo. Cusco has so many hiking equipment rental stores, it’s not even funny and we are ready for the briefing tomorrow. It’s been cold, but that’s why we keep the coca flowing.
Recap
Total Miles: 13,087 mi
Miles Traveled: 3,778 mi
Current Elevation: 11,221ft (Denver is 5,280ft for reference)
Current City: Cusco, Peru
Best thing I’ve consumed
After a walking tour, we rushed over to Oculto to have a nice candle-lit dinner. Fredy, our server, was amable and more than happy to discuss the cusqueño carta they had put together. He was a cook before becoming a server, and we could tell his affability would have been lost on the line in the back of house. We were interested in the different varieties of pisco sours and Fi got a delicious passionfruit one (maracuyá, not granadilla) and I went for the matacuy sour. Matacuy is a digestif made outside of Cusco, in Ollantaytambo, and is made of over 50 spices. It primarily tastes of anis, which is a popular flavor in the region and I’m always game for.
“Matacuy” is also a compound word meaning “kills guinea pig” and comes from a saying after eating the famous roast cattle, unique to Andean cuisine. After loosening the belt a few notches after a good meal, sipping on this delicious distillate, it would be common for the one serving to say “que mates el cuy” or “that you might kill the guinea pig.” It’s a play on words because you will likely have had some cuy and this helps you digest it quickly.
I didn’t really have much of an appetite for cuy, but Fredy did put me on to alpaca tenderloin. It’s a very lean animal and he told me from his days in the back of house that it was best when cooked tres-cuartos, or medium-well. Tender, meaty and almost like a mix of beef and pork with minimal fat. The cuy may have not been mata-ed, but that camelid1 certainly got hit with 50 herbs and spices.
Alpaca (Lama pacos) is a domesticated species of South American camelid. Others are include llamas, guanacos, and vicuñas