Robyn tries ceviche

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Ceviche (say-ve-chey): Cold soup-like dish usually bearing suspect raw fish or unidentifiable parts of aquatic creatures.

How does it taste: when cooked correctly...incredible.

The basic ingredients: limes (lots of ´em), raw seafood (virtually anything to your liking: shrimp, octopus, fish, lobster, prawns, scallops, conchalagua), tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, salt.

Isn´t it dangerous to eat raw seafood: Yes!!! Actually, in theory the seafood in ceviche is not raw at all, as it is cooked in the acids of the limes before consumption.

Before getting into this particular story of Robyn´s first "stab" at this local Ecuadorian delicacy, I think it is important to note that ceviche is treated exactly like that..."a local delicacy". What I mean to say is that ceviche is relatively quite expensive compared to the average price of food in the Galapagos, costing up to $10 per dish. Now, to our standards this doesn´t sound that high of a price at all, but keep in mind that it is very easy to eat a filling meal around these parts for as little as a $2.

With that said, now I bet you can see why Robyn and I were so excited to find ceviche for only $3 at this little hole in the wall restaurant/kareoke bar. Seems like an odd combination, you might ask: kareoke and ceviche? This was also quickly revealed to us. It turned out that the "restaurant" was a local hangout better known for its cheap alcohol and long hours than its amazing cuisine.

Now, it just so happens that in this particular batch of ceviche, the chef decided to throw in some "pulpo" (translates into: raw octopus tentacles). I (this is Robyn speaking now) decided to give it a try after I had thrown most of the chopped up octopus legs, complete with the little suckers, into Aaron´s dish (keep in mind that I had only started to eat meat again a few weeks earlier). Aaron somehow convinced me to be adventurous and eat one of the aquine appendages dripping with lime juice...

The result? You just have to look at the pictures. These were not posed, they were taken in sequence from when I originally put the peice of pulpo into my apprehensive mouth, through the chewing (oh, and is it hard to chew!) process, until I finally lifted my small glass of Inca Kola (made by Coca Cola, of course) in triumph.

Now that I´ve tried it, I don´t think I´ll ever have to put myself through that again. Yay! (Keep in mind that we definitely took some Cipro antibiotics afterwards to ward off any unpleasant aftershocks.)

Aaron´s final thoughts: To sum up the entire experience (from a spectator´s point of view): it was a battle of wits, it was a battle of courage, but most of all it was a battle of deception. In other words, I don´t think Robyn stood a chance in hell to safely get those raw tentacles down her throat without pulling off some kind of miraculous feat of mental manipulation...hence her closed eyes thoughout the mastication process.

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Photos

yummmmm...raw tentacles!
On second thought...maybe it´s best not to look at what you´re about to eat

See Robyn...it´s not that bad
Go ahead and dig in!

Uh, oh...
Don´t worry it´ll slide right on down!

Comments

[Lilan]

you guys are silly. in Taiwan I ate bees and they were delicious. But anything deep-fried can be pretty delicious. You should try deep-frying the tentacles, Robyn.

[Laur]

Ewww
Wow Robyn and Aaron... hats off to you my friends...looks like an adventure for the stomach...i don't know if I could have done it...i agree with Lilan though...when things are deep fried it helps:)