Health drinks can be a little hard to swallow sometimes, as anyone who’s ever choked down a bottle of kombucha can confirm. No matter how much honey, fruit, or packets of Splenda you toss into the blender, it’s hard to cover up the taste of kale to the point where it doesn’t taste like the south end of a northbound alpaca. In Peru, however, they’ve come up with a supposedly rejuvenating concoction that is thoroughly impossible to make taste like anything other than exactly what it is: frog juice.
This is a culinary delicacy in some parts of South America’s third-biggest country. Jugo de rana (literally a whole frog thrown into a blender along with some herbs and honey) has its origins in ancient mystical folklore. It’s also called “Peruvian Viagra,” due to its supposed positive effects on erectile dysfunction. So guys, if you’re having any, ahem, difficulties, you might want to go frog hunting. But keeping things up isn’t the only thing amphibian squeezings can treat:
• Anemia
• Tuberculosis
• Asthma
If you’ve got any of these conditions, you can benefit from gulping down slimy, mulched pond hoppers. As a bonus, the specific type of critter used as the main ingredient is the Titicaca water frog (Telmatobius culeus). If that wasn’t hilarious enough, that particular frog’s nickname happens to be, because of its baggy, wrinkly appearance, “the scrotum frog.”
Frog juice is not some niche drink that’s consumed only by a small minority who are immune to nausea; it’s very popular. Purveyors of the stuff are murdering so many scrotum frogs, in fact, that they’re sliding rapidly toward extinction. To be fair, an increase in pollution is also killing them off in droves, which would seem to argue against their continued ability to produce healthy erections (unless this condition also happens to be a heretofore-unknown side effect of sucking in industrial waste). The Peruvian government is taking measures to save the species by prosecuting illegal wildlife traders and raiding frog juice vendors (who individually go through fifty to seventy containers of the stuff per day). But as the demand remains, your local frog juice dealer will be out there. After all, supernatural medical beliefs of our ancestors supersede bureaucrats telling us that puréeing frogs is wrong.
Cuteness on a Stick
While you’re sipping your pleasant, cool beverage made from minced frogs, perhaps you’d care for some fried guinea pigs for the main course? That’s right, the cute and cuddly rodent that’s been a beloved first pet for generations of American children is definitely on the menu in Peru. You can buy them barbecued on a stick by the roadside or order them right off the menu at most restaurants.
Conservationists and zoos across the world are making efforts to save the scrotum frog, despite the fact that it looks like something the cat threw up. People like James Garcia, an outreach programs specialist for the Denver Zoo, have been able to look past the frog’s flappy repulsiveness and work toward its salvation. He explained what must be done in an interview with Live Science: “We’re trying to teach people to take pride in this animal, to understand this animal. Without them saving it and learning about it and taking pride in it, it’s not going to be saved.”
With all this, it might come as something of a surprise that in 2016, Peru was given the title “World’s Leading Culinary Destination” by World Travel Awards for the fifth year running. It’s also the home to no small number of trendy superfoods, like quinoa and pichuberry, which makes their cuisine healthier on average. This explains why Peruvian food is becoming increasingly popular in America (or at least California), with fifteen themed (presumably non-guinea-pig–specializing) restaurants in Los Angeles alone. No word on whether they serve frog juice. If they do, those same restaurants might have to deal with their fair share of angry protesters.
So Many Options
If frog smoothies and guinea pig kabobs haven’t scared you into packing your suitcase full of granola bars and jerky for your next trip to Peru, there are other traditional dishes that might make you consider it. Like the fact that the jerky they have over there isn’t made from beef or even something exotic like ostrich but from llamas. Or the bowls of roasted “big bottomed” ants, grilled grubs from the South American palm weevil, or giant Amazonian river snails, which are chopped up and made into a hearty stew. If you’d like to be adventurous, give these things a go. Maybe they’ll go down a bit more smoothly if you do like the locals and dip them in clay.
But thankfully for the critically endangered water frogs, there are plenty of people who care about them, and not just because they allegedly make men happier in the bedroom. And with a little luck and determination, we may yet again see the shores of Lake Titicaca teeming with scrotum-beasts. In a final bit of good news, the Denver Zoo was successful in breeding the very first Telmatobius culeus tadpoles in captivity in 2017. Hopefully it was for benign purposes and not to supply cheap ingredients for their new Peruvian-themed food court.
