It all started on the first day I created the list. I’d had the fantastic idea to create the list but still needed to think of things to put on it. I hit the internet for inspiration. At some point during the night I found a site that suggested eating everything on the BBC’s list of 50 things you should eat before you die!! That was perfect, in what better way could I improve my life than eating the world’s finest delicacies. If these were foods that would be fit for a King then they would definitely be fit for me! Hell, I mean eating a Birdseye crispy chicken instead of a Chicken burger is big news for me on a Sunday night. Just think of all the fantastic food I would now be sampling instead. I proudly added it my list without even reading the foods I’d have to eat and proceeded to send my first posting to the internet!! What a mistake!

An hour later I glanced down the list: Number 1- Fresh fish, well that’s easy enough; I’ve done that plenty of times. Tick!! Number 9 – Curry, well that will be sorted this Saturday after a night in the Meg and a phone call to Rupey’s. Number 26 – Burgers: Mcdonalds here I come! Number 32...... and that’s when my heart stopped!! I couldn’t believe what I was reading. 10 minutes later I posted the following on to my blog...

“Ok, then. Before I can cross number 13 off my list, I have got to eat the following 50 foods, starting tomorrow. This is probably gonna be the toughest of the tasks, although I may be able to cross off Haggis while visiting Loch Ness :-)

Having not looked at this list before I posted it as Number 13, all I can now say is FUCK!!! What are Moreton Bay bugs, what the hell is clam chowder, and FUCK FUCK FUCK how the hell do u cook a Guinea pig. I mean which sick fucker even votes for Guinea pig on the list of 50 foods to eat before I die. Ice Cream - easy, Alligator -ok, Octopus - yeah at a push... but Guinea pig!!!! Its gonna be a long 23 months.”

And there it was... Guinea pig. That cute domestic pet! And some sick bastard had voted it as one of the top 50 foods to eat in the world. Who the fuck would do that, I mean just how cute are the little blighters, they’re something you want to cuddle not something you want to chop up with a big machete and throw into a frying pan with a few onions and a sprinkling of garlic!! It was wrong, but it was on the list, it had been posted on the net, and there was now nothing I could do about it. To fulfil my new life mission, at some point before I turned 30 I would have to eat a poor helpless Guinea pig. I needed to find out more about them, so I hit Google. Half hour later I made the next posting...

“But they're so cute.... All u needed to know about what I now have to do.

Ok so cooking Guinea pig appears to involve a big skewer.


From wikipedia...
Guinea pigs are a traditional food source in the Andes. Meals incorporating guinea pig are particularly associated with ceremonial occasions. Although the meat was for a time falling out of favour there has been a resurgence in its consumption. The most traditional Peruvian manner of cooking guinea pig involves building a stone pit and lining it with llama dung and firewood and then burying guinea pig carcasses in the coals once the fire has built up heat.

And so there it was. Eating a Guinea pig would involve, going to a pet shop, killing one, skinning it and ramming a pool queue up its arse and holding over a BBQ for 25 minutes. And where the fuck was I going to get Llama dung from! I had 23 months to go before I was 30, and for the time being I decided to put it out of my mind! Unfortunately for me, somebody else couldn’t do that.  3 days later I received the following email off Phil Hazeldine...

“..don’t worry about the guinea pig, i’ll be back before your birthday and I feel I am the man to sort your problem out. They are easy to cook but i feel i am the only person you know who would go and buy one, kill it, gut it, skin it and cook it. if you don’t believe me ask sam jones, she has a story or two about me and killing things that are loved by small children.”

For those of you who don’t know Phil, let me tell you a few things about him. At the time he sent this email, he was off in Australia or some other 3rd world place, spending a year travelling. His weekly emails home would involve tales of Crocodile hunting, and upside down male lap dancing competitions! If there was anybody I knew who would be crazy enough to cook me a Guinea pig then it would be Phil. I mean, only weeks before he’d disappeared off to sea for 6 weeks on a boat diving for Sea Urchins or some other bizarre mythological creatures! His reason for taking the job.... it paid really well. The reason it paid well... there was a good fucking likelihood you’d be eaten by a shark while out there. Yep Phil was definitely crazy enough to cook a Guinea pig but luckily for me he’d be on the other side of the planet for 7 months, and by the time he got back he would have forgotten all about it! Or so I thought....

Roll on Easter 2007. It was a typically rainy Sunday afternoon and I popped into the Meg for a quick drink. Glancing round the pub, I was suddenly shocked to see Phil sat in the corner. I’d heard he was due back but hadn’t realised he’d actually arrived. I wandered over to say hello, and he jumped out of his seat pleased to see me, hugged me and said...
“Mate, I told you I’d sorted it and I have. On my way home from the airport I’ve been to the pet shop”.
Yep that’s right, there was no hello, or “Hey dude, it’s great to see you”, it was straight down to business! After 7 months of thinking he’d forgot about the Guinea pig, his first words on seeing me involved a pet shop. He carried on explaining how on his way home he’d stopped off in Biddulph and purchased one baby Guinea pig. “Little Belf” as he’d affectionately named it in honour of my best mate Belf, was now sat in an old rabbit hutch in his garage, and it would take about 3 months to fatten up before being ready to eat. Bollocks, I thought. Who in their right mind would call into a pet shop on their way home from a 12 month trip away to purchase a small rodent! Even Phil wouldn’t be that stupid.... would he??
Soon rumours spread like wildfire around the pub. First it was Zoe coming up to me asking if I’d heard about what Phil had bought, then Chloe, then Giles. Everyone seemed to know, and Giles and Si even claimed to have been down to pay the little fella a visit. Even though in my mind I still thought this was a wind up, part of me was starting to doubt my better judgement!! What had I gotten myself in to? What were the legal ramifications of buying a Guinea pig from a pet shop with the intention of eating it, surely the RSPCA would have something to say about it! I had vision of 3 months down the line being arrested for cruelty to animals & being locked up & forced to become a trannie’s bitch with a nightly bum raping, all because I wanted to try a few more exotic foods. 

And so finally the day came. It was a Sunday in May and Zoe had organised a BBQ at her dad’s house to celebrate her birthday. For the previous week people had been telling me that Phil was preparing Little Belf to be eaten at the BBQ  but I of course wasn’t worried as I was still convinced this was all a wind up and he’d turn up empty handed and we’d all have a good laugh about it. After about 30 minutes of being there and taking lots of stick off people, Phil finally walked around the corner with a small carrier bag in hand. He walked up to me with a huge grin on his face and proceeded to pull out a small carcass of meat. Oh fuck!! There in front of me with a wooden skewer stuck straight up its arse was the small skinned body of a little rodent. It looked a little long and thin to be a Guinea pig but as I’d never seen a Guinea pig walking round without its skin on, I just assumed that’s how they all looked. I started wondering what had happened to all of its fur! Maybe Phil had saved it all to make himself a Guinea pig fur murkin! I mean, that would be quite an impressive thing to show off to the ladies in the bedroom! But I had more important things on my mind than to worry about Phil’s pubic wig fetishes, there in front of me was a poor dead skinless Little Belf and in about 20 minutes time I would have to eat him!

Room was made on the BBQ and Giles took charge in cooking. At this point I was seriously considering legging it from the party, but how would that look in front of everyone. My friends already thought my list was crazy, if I ran I’d just be proving to them that I wasn’t fully committed to it. I only had one option and that was to go through with it and eat the thing.  While all this was going through my mind, Giles wasn’t making things easy for me. He kept picking Little Belf off the BBQ and walking it towards me making silly squeaky voices saying “Don’t eat me Mr Ecke!!” It didn’t help matters one bit.

Finally the time came, and I was instructed to sit at the table. Phil whipped a napkin out and threw it over my leg, and then a plate was put down in front of me. You couldn’t fault the presentation; it was surrounded by garnish and nicely decorated. It was just a shame that sat in the middle of all of the nice stuff was a BBQ’ed Guinea Pig! I felt sick, and I wasn’t the only one. As I cut into little Belf with my knife and fork, I saw through the corner of my eye that Zoe and Val had turned a quite unnatural shade of green. A second later they both legged it to the bottom of the garden and became reacquainted with the burgers they’d eaten half an hour before. And there was me, sat with a piece of Guinea Pig on my fork and 30 people stood round eager for me forget my morals on Animal Cruelty and take my first bite! My list was meant to improve my life, but if I’d known when I started it that somewhere down the line I’d be responsible for the death of a small furry rodent then I might have thought twice. Eating a domestic pet went against everything I believed in! First Guinea pigs, then what next... a hamster, a cat, my next door neighbours Scotty dog! Where would it all end. But I suppose the thing already was dead, so it would be wrong to let it die in vain. It was my duty to make sure its death stood for something! I closed my eyes, and put the fork to my mouth!

The meat was tender and touched my tongue. I started to slowly chew, my eyes still firmly closed! I wasn’t sure what to expect, but then all of a sudden it came to me..... Turkey! Yep that’s right, it tasted exactly like Turkey. I’d been dreading this moment for months but if I’d known it was going to taste like a Christmas dinner, I’d have looked forward to it. I took another mouthful and chewed some more, then thought I’d better offer it round. I couldn’t be greedy, when else would people ever get the chance to try a Peruvian delicacy like this! Phil took a bite, followed by Andy Martin, and a few of the other lads. I offered a piece to Val, but she just threw up again. Obviously Guinea Pig wasn’t her thing.

So there it was, I’d done it! I’d completed the hardest thing on my list! I’d eaten a Guinea Pig. I was proud, but also a little disgusted with myself. But it was a big moment, who else would ever be able to say they’d tasted Guinea Pig meat (well apart from the lads who finished it off). I made a caa-ching sound in my head as I mentally crossed it off my list. As I was sat, basking in my success I thought things were perfect, then Phil came over and my world fell apart!!

“Ecke, there’s something I’d like you to see” said Phil as he wandered over with a huge grin on his face. He had his mobile phone in his hand.

“I’ve taken some photos of Little Belf during the killing and skinning bits of the task. I’d like you to see them”, he said!

Now it was bad enough I’d just eaten a Guinea pig but I didn’t want to see pictures of them skinning the little blighter! I went to politely decline but before I had chance he thrusted his phone in front of my face. I looked at the screen and my jaw dropped open.

Where I’d been expecting to see a dead Guinea Pig, there was no pig in sight. Instead there was a dead Squirrel. Yep that’s right, a fucking dead Squirrel. A squirrel that looked absolutely fuck all like a Guinea pig.
“What do you think of Little Belf?”, asked Phil, “Don’t you think he’s cute”.

I was horrified and didn’t know what to say as the realisation come over me that not only hadn’t I actually eaten a Guinea Pig, but what I had eaten was a disease ridden rodent! Squirrels are rats with long tails, and would you ever contemplate eating a rat.... no would you fuck! So you certainly wouldn’t ever want to eat a squirrel. I heaved, i felt sick and the colour drained from my face! Phil burst out into hysterics! It had been the wind up of the century, the whole pub had been in on it. Apparently he did look into getting a Guinea Pig but was worried the RSPCA might kick off, so came up with Plan B. He went to his Uncles farm, borrowed a shot gun and went squirrel hunting in the woods. Everyone had known and somehow not one person had let it slip!

So there I was, stood in a garden full of laughing people. One minute I was on a high having achieved my goal, and then the next minute I had it snatched out of my hand and was suffering humiliation! And the worst part of it all... that mental caa-ching I had made wasn’t real. I had to remove my tick and I was back to square one! So that was that, I went home feeling destroyed and no closer to completing my list!

The only good thing to come out of the day, well at least now if I’m ever too skint at Christmas to afford a turkey, I’ll be able to compromise and serve up squirrel and no one would know the difference!