To eat or not to eat...

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So today me and one of the new volunteers Elodie went into town to do a bit of shopping. We decided to have lunch. Alot of the restaurants do a ´Menu of the Day´ at lunchtime and for about 4 soles (about a pound sterling) you get a big bowl of soup, either pollo (chicken) or carne (meat...a general term Peruvians use for any kind of animal...its like a fun game guessing which species you are chowing down on...) with rice and salad and a glass of chicha morada (a wierd cinnamon tasting drink made from black corn....yeah you cant make this crap up!). So we settle down to eat and 2 huge bowls of a delcious corriander and lime soup arrive. First spoonful no problem, then Elodie decided to hunt deeper for her next spoonful, and all of a sudden a chicken´s foot floats to the top of her soup. Yep. Intrigued she investigated further and came up with a neck and a bit of rib cage. Now the game was on. I started desparately ploughing the depths of my green stock...hoping to trump her foot. Nothing....then all of a sudden I found it. The ace card. A chicken´s heart made its way to the surface. So than the discussion turned to...do we actually have to eat the offal. Surely not. Surely its for stock purposes and not for consumption. Will I offend if I don´t eat Chicken Little´s aorta and spinal cord... By this stage we were making quite a scene. I was crying with laughter and dribbling soup down me, Eldodie wasnt fairing any better. I think the other Peruvians were relieved when we paid up and left. But there is a lesson here people...when you are paying a quid for grub dont be surprised if you find an organ in your soup.

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