Elaine's Pathways

People in different places eat different things. It depends on what’s available and what people in an area discover over the years that the body needs to be able to function. Getting protein is at the head of the list for varieties of critters and critter parts people have learned to eat to survive in their own areas and it leads to the wildest variety of foods imaginable.

A beautiful green iguana. I haven’t eaten one of these.
Photo: Jodi Kemdall, Nat’l Geographic

We read about survivalist training where people are taught to eat grubs and worms as well as bark and weeds and roots. Recently a man survived by eating raw frogs he caught in a river that was shallow enough for him to be found sitting in. When necessary, you eat what is available.

A very angry garrobo with his legs on his back so he can’t run

People in warmer areas eat things like iguanas. My dictionary says: iguana — any of a large family (Iguanidae) of mostly American tree, ground or marine lizards; esp. any of a genus (Iguana) of harmless, large, tropical American lizards that feed on insects or vegetation and have a row of spines from neck to tail.

In the 1990s I went to Nicaragua to work with a weaving co-op. I lived with different families during my times there. One day I was asked if I would eat “garrobo.” I asked what a garrobo was, and was told it was a “logarto.” A lizard. I told them I would eat it if they ate it. They ate it, they said.

A 16-year-old girl said, “No, it’s not good. Don’t eat it,” but her elders told her she would have been happy to eat garrobo back during the revolution.
So an effort to catch a garrobo for dinner was set in motion. I was surprised to see Huberto climb up a big tree that evening. When they told me garrobos lived in trees and ate leaves, I felt reassured. I had no idea what the garrobo was going to look like.

In an area where few people have refrigerators, I had seen people along the roads carrying live green iguanas and armadillos for sale, holding them by their tails. As long as they were live, they didn’t need refrigeration. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? If they didn’t sell them the first day, they could bring them back the next day. But of course you had to do your own butchering.

Garrobo on a leash.
This is the guy we ate.

Huberto caught a garrobo and brought it to show me. They have a way of putting the legs up on the back of the logarto so they can’t run away. This guy wasn’t exactly a beauty, and he was angry. Cecilio brought him to me for petting. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that if I was going to eat him later, but I had to show I wasn’t squeamish. The little guy didn’t feel rough-skinned to my touch. Then Cecilio attached a cord to him and released his legs. He was still angry at us.
I didn’t blame him.

Huberto took the garrobo home and later came back with a stew. I was hesitant to try it; taking that first bite took a lot of courage. I tried not to show it.
The meat was delicious! I’d expected a fishy taste because when I tried frogs’ legs they tasted like fishy chicken to me. I was dumb to expect that of a critter that lived in a tree, but I was just plain dumb about lizards anyway. I can’t say it tasted like chicken, I don’t know what it tasted like, except that it was good eating.