The Bizarre Truth

by Andrew Zimmern

  That next limpia ceremony took place at the top of an abandoned four-story building. We discovered that this place was chosen not because of some spiritual significance but because there were no other options. It seemed counterintuitive to get cleansed in such a scary environment, filled with a horde of dicey characters wandering around smoking cigarettes and swilling cheap hooch, but I wasn’t about to piss off any gods, spirits, or thugs by leaving. Our hosts built a fire on a table on the floor of this abandoned place, burned their llama fetus, drank a half case of beer each, and ate fistfuls of coca leaf, which more or less has the same effects as snorting cocaine when chewed with the right resinous sap to make the drug’s active ingredients water-soluble and processable by the body. Delirious, drunk, and wired simultaneously while managing a fire set to a rotting piece of llama flesh—you can imagine that the scenario just oozed with spirituality. In their drunken stupor, our host mumbled prayers in my direction, most likely because I’d purchased the beer and coca leaf for them, then exited as fast as they could, leaving me and my crew to navigate back to the hotel on our own. It might be the only limpia ceremony in which, when it was all said and done, I felt exponentially dirtier.

  The cleansing ceremony that has stuck with me the most took place in the highlands of the Andes. Otavalo, Ecuador, is home to the largest outdoor market in the continent. It’s really more of a huge merchandise mart or county fair than anything else. After a day of shooting, a “friend” suggested I see a yachac, Ecuador’s traditional witch doctor. Given that the Ecuadorians take their spiritual healing rather seriously—all shamans must be certified by a medical board—I figured this was the place to get the most bang for my buck.

  Boy, did I ever. Armed with only a five-dollar bill and a live guinea pig, I met my doctor in his closet-size office. Despite the fact that the outside temperature was a chilly forty-five degrees, this windowless room was stifling hot. Daniel, my yachac, sat opposite me at a desk loaded with trinkets, chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes as he poked and prodded me. He graciously took my money, fired off a few questions, and then asked me to take off my clothes. In retrospect, I’m unsure why I answered so quickly, but next thing you know, I’m stripped down to my boxers in a strange man’s office.

  He wrapped my head in a towel and proceeded to blow huge puffs of cigarette smoke on me for about twenty minutes, which didn’t exactly feel like the pinnacle of health and cleanliness. Next, he took the guinea pig and, holding its front legs in one hand and rear legs in the other, he beat my body mercilessly until the guinea pig died. He tossed the guinea pig into the pile of cigarette butts in the corner.

  You’d think we were about to wrap this whole ritual up, but apparently, we were just beginning. Daniel then spat up all over me. I’m not talking saliva. This was phlegm cleared from the depths of his black lungs and throat. Then he took a few swigs of homemade Everclear and sprayed it from his mouth at my eyes, ears, chest, back … everywhere. He followed up by rubbing three hard-boiled eggs, which are said to represent the earth, all over me from the bottoms of my feet to the top of my head.

  I completely lost it when he began beating me with poisonous leaves that burned my skin and caused me to break out in hives. If you’ve seen that episode of my old show Bizarre Foods, I’m seriously on the verge of a mental breakdown. I’m done with this healing shit. I’m pulling the plug. Daniel somehow convinced me to soldier on, reassuring me via interpreter that the hives would dissipate after an hour or so. He then filled his mouth with more grain alcohol, held a lighter up to his lips, and blew fire all over me. Our session concluded with Daniel setting fire to the branches, cigarette butts, the bottle of booze, and the dead guinea pig. The evil spirits trapped in my body were passed along to these inanimate objects. The flames then destroyed that bad juju, leaving me free and clear of negative spirits.

  At the time, I considered this hour one of the most abusive, torturous experiences I’d had in the past twenty years. However, the next twelve months were probably the best of my life. My wife and I adopted our amazing son, Noah. Bizarre Foods, which I’d been shopping around for years, became a smash hit on the Travel Channel. I need to send Daniel a big gracias for that.

  While all these experiences hold a special place in my heart, they pale in comparison to the Ball Snipping Spring Testicle Festival that I attended in Temuco, Chile. I’ve mentioned before that Chile is one of my favorite destinations. It’s the California of South America, but it’s often overlooked. The country is never more than 220 miles wide, so you can go from ocean to highlands to Andes Mountains in less than three hours. The coastline extends 2,700 miles, stretching through a variety of temperate zones and climates. It has the world’s driest desert; it has lush expanses of forests and highlands, glaciers, fjords, active volcanoes; it has big cities and rural villages.

  Chileans are predominantly mestizos, the result of marriages between the country’s indigenous people, most notably the Mapuche Indians, and those of European descent, predominantly the Spanish. The country does house some isolated pockets of pure-blooded Mapuche; however, these populations are quickly disappearing.

  If you want to brush against the Mapuche culture, head to Temuco, a city of about 200,000 people. The city is the cultural center of the Mapuche Indians, who make up almost 15 percent of the population. It’s in southern Chile and it sits in the heart of the Lake District. It is stunningly beautiful—bold, with growth forests, rolling hillsides, and snowcapped volcanic peaks on the horizon. Most of the activity there is agricultural: oats, wheat, barley, timber, and lots of hard fruits, like apples and pears.

  The other appealing thing about the city is that it’s the heart and soul of the country’s beef industry. While Argentina and Brazil get the hubbub about their phenomenal beef-eating culture, I was really impressed with all the beef that I ate in Chile. I visited parilladas, the traditional Chilean steakhouses, where they bring a grill to your table piled high with every different cut of the cow imaginable—from udders and cheeks to filet. You rotate the meat around the grill’s hot spots, charring it on the outside. If you’re a wine drinker, nothing will quite wash this carnivore’s haven down like a fantastic glass of Chilean red wine.

  It seemed that every time I sat down for a steak dinner, the beef originated in the Lake District. This got the dusty sprockets turning in my head. The Lake District: home of the Mapuche Indians and the best beef in the country. Why not kill two birds with one stone? My friend’s friend Mauricio agreed to arrange a visit with his friends, Moises Velasco and Cristina Doty, owners of Fondo Collanco, a 10,000-acre cattle ranch a few hours outside of Temuco. Fortunately, my trip coincided with a springtime ritual every culinary fanatic should witness at least once in their life.

  In the ranching world, spring castration is an extremely important process. When the nuts go, they take the bull’s aggression along with it. Additionally, the steer will yield a tastier, more tender meat. Fondo Collanco, lying in the shadow of the Llama Volcano, castrates between twenty and thirty bulls a day, leaving one of every twenty-five bulls still intact for the beef-replication market, which I’m sure is a lot of fun for those chosen few.

  As we pulled into the ranch, I felt an air of excitement. The quality of the red meat in Chile far exceeds what I’m accustomed to seeing in the States, and I eagerly awaited watching the meat go from farm to table. The cattle pens teemed with activity and commotion, which intrigued me from a distance.

  The castration process is not taken lightly. Moises always has an experienced veterinarian perform the procedure, along with twenty of his Mapuche ranch hands helping out. These workers come from families who have worked on the Velasco farm for generations; their fathers worked there for Moises’ father before them, and so on. Little about the actual castration freaked me out. The whole process is sterile and safe, and not messy in the least. Everybody cares for the animals. They have to—it’s the lifeblood of their personal economy. The farmhands herd the bulls into a corral. They take one at a
time, tie their feet together, and gently tip them over. The veterinarian places a giant hedging shear around the testicles, snips them off, and immediately sprays the wound with an industrial-strength vaccine/disinfectant to prevent disease and infection. This snipping noise, which sounds a lot like snapping a tree branch, was the only thing that caused me to cross my legs in phantom pain. The criadillas, or testicles, are tossed into one bucket; the capullo, or scrotal sac, is placed on a separate tray where it will be skinned or peeled off the hide. These were big balls, much larger than ones I’ve seen commercially available in Europe or the States.

  I couldn’t believe how quickly these bulls recovered. The process took all of five minutes, and after the light medicinal spray, they hopped up as if nothing had happened. Later, Moises, Cristina, Mauricio, and I took a brief horse ride to explore the ranch. The newly minted steers lay in the grassy pastures, relaxing and resting very naturally, gathering back their strength again. I’m happy to report that after two or three hours, all of them were up and prancing around, and they were all free-ranging and drinking and eating, which is a sign of good health. I was in way more pain after having my wisdom teeth pulled. Castration is the ultimate outpatient surgery.

  Then we retired to the barn, where everyone, from the Velasco family to the ranch hands, gathered for a celebratory feast. Different pieces of cooking equipment were set up all around the barn. In an odd turn of events, the vet skinned the scrotal sacs, rinsed them off, and began to sautée the “meat” with onions and chilies over a wood-burning fire. He continually added pieces of the capullo, tomatoes, and copious amounts of white wine and covered the pot. The pot was moved to a less intense spot on the fire, where it simmered three hours.

  When it comes to eating balls, I’m a seasoned veteran. Deer penis, rocky mountain oysters, even tuna sperm—I’ve tried almost everything in that buffet line. But up until this trip to Chile, I’d never eaten an animal’s scrotum. Everyone was excited for me to try it, which made me excited to do it as well. Long ago, I learned that a large population of satisfied customers can’t be wrong.

  The testicles were peeled and cut into slices. The farmers took an old plowshare, a long, sloping, triangular piece of metal about the size of a kitchen table, and suspended it over a fire in the barn. Once this troughlike grill was ready, the vet-turned-chef added a generous pour of olive oil, twenty garlic cloves, and a handful of dried red chilies. Once the garlic and chilies were sufficiently scorched, he added hundreds of sliced testicles, which quickly seared on the plowshare. The testicles, now browned on both sides, were moved to a lower heat, where they cooked for a few more minutes. Seasoned with salt and pepper and placed on homemade rolls, we ate traditional Pil-Pil-style sandwiches as we waited for the capullo to finish.

  The capullo had a few more hours to go, and I was confused about what we would do and eat in the meantime. I watched as a few women brought avocado, tomato, and onion salads and other side dishes to the table, along with popping open a few bottles of red and white. Something was going down, to which I was not privy. The Mapuche take the spiritual side of the spring castration week seriously, to ensure that they respectfully usher in the new growing season. No start of spring is complete without a traditional niache ceremony.

  The ceremony commenced with two beautiful, fat spring lambs being led into the barn and hoisted up by their hind legs. The Machupe farmhands placed a sling around their necks, bent them to the side, and slit their throats by driving a knife out from behind their trachea. The blood flowed quickly, pooling into two pans where it was immediately seasoned with dried chili, salt, pepper, fresh cilantro, lemon juice, and minced onion. Within two minutes, the lemon juice, salt, and herbs caused the blood to congeal to the consistency of firm pudding.

  The European Chileans watched from the sidelines, but you know me—I dove right in. We passed around the pans, taking a spoonful of this red blood pudding. They love that mineraly, tinny flavor of blood. Flavorwise, it reminds me of biting into a copper roof on a hot summer’s day. We’ve all nicked a finger and shoved it into our mouth. Whether it’s blood from a paper cut or blood from a spring lamb, it more or less all tastes the same, except this time it had the added bonus of lemon juice, cilantro, and the chili pepper, which sort of negated the richness.

  The problem with consuming blood dishes, especially fresh blood dishes, is the effect on your body temperature. Eating whale blubber causes the body to behave similarly. While I toured the western village of Bethel, Alaska, I ate a lot of blubber with the locals. Within minutes, your body temperature rises two or three degrees. Even in a cold room, you’re compelled to start stripping down; the sweaters and outer layers disappear pretty damn fast. The same thing happened at this niache ceremony. Interestingly, the Mapuche swear that niache works as a powerful aphrodisiac, although I did not find that to be the case.

  After bleeding out, the lambs were immediately skinned, quartered, trimmed, and placed on rotisseries, which were turned by hand over a wood-burning fire. After about an hour and a half the lamb was ready, which coincided perfectly with the capullo finishing—the scrotum-sac stew was coming off the stove on the wood-burning oven—and we sat down to eat.

  The spread teemed with fabulous comfort food. We passed platters of fresh avocado, tomato and onion salads, roasted potatoes, and loaves of crusty bread. The fire-roasted lamb and the bowls of capullo were incredible. If you like bone marrow, capullo is right up your alley. Rich and fatty, the inch-size pieces of scrotum literally melt in your mouth. They look like big square yellow cubes of Turkish Delight. They have a translucent quality to them but remain opaque in the center. The wine reduction around them added the perfect amount of acid. Initially, I thought the amount of wine added to the dish was overkill, but simmering for three hours on an open fire caused the excess to evaporate, leaving an intense, winey concentrated sauce.

  The capullo is so filling, you can’t eat large amounts of it. We toasted our newfound friends and paused for a traditional Mapuche blessing from the elders. The spring harvest holds a lot of significance for these indigenous people. It celebrates the planting of the crops, the castration of the animals, the sacrificing of the spring lamb, and the blessing for a successful farming season. More than a celebration of the agricultural year to come, it’s one of the last remaining rituals that the Mapuche regularly celebrate.

  What is fantastic and quite unusual is how the Mapuche share this ceremony with mestizos. The Mapuche are some of the kindest and friendliest people in the world, and they feel that the circumstances of their life are just as they should be. There is no hostility. They don’t feel like second-class citizens, nor are they treated that way. To this day, they serve as a powerful group in the Lake District. The meal felt like a family celebrating together, despite their differences. For me, that’s what sharing food and culture is all about.

  Ritual Royalty

  The Kalahari Trance Dance of the Bushmen

  ituals usually fall into some fairly predictable categories. There is the created modern ritual, like toasting business partners at a celebratory dinner after closing a big deal. It’s the kind of custom rooted in the ancient world. It’s been done for thousands of years, but every generation shapes it, creating a new cultural footprint.

  Then we find marketed experiences. These are not re-creations; rather, they are combinations of traditional cultural experiences married with modern need and efficiency, like the Korean Barbecue and Sauna Restaurant. There is nothing ginned-up about it; the experience is authentic. Independently, Koreans adore the sauna and barbecue. It’s just the goofy marriage of the restaurant and the sauna that makes this experience distinctly modern. The Santeria ceremony I experienced in Cuba is much of the same, melding the modern with elements of traditional African religious practices. While these customs have filtered through generations, deep-seated rituals that accompanied African slaves to Cuba 500 years ago have stuck around in a big way. The Santeria practice of loving worship is still relevant
and practical in the twenty-first century. It’s a combination platter of old and new.

  I’ve experienced a lot of indigenous, first people’s shamanistic practices, most notably in South America. In Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile, I participated in—or was the subject of—cleansing rituals performed by shamans, healers, or yachac, that lovely Ecuadorian medicine man. These experiences took place in small villages or in towns. Despite the stark contrast to the way you and I probably live, it’s next to impossible to travel to many of these places. It’s quite strange to visit someone practicing ancient traditions with your feet planted in the here and now of the twenty-first century.

  But the most amazing traditional first people’s ritual that I ever participated in was the Trance Dance ceremony I sat in on in Botswana.

  A few weeks ago, I flew into Maun, Botswana, a pocket-size airport: one gate serviced by a couple of flights a day from Gabarone, Francis Town, and Johannesburg. Botswana Airways runs two or three forty-eight-seat propeller planes in and out of there. Despite the almost antique airfield qualities to the infrastructure there, it’s one of the busiest small-plane hubs in the entire Southern Hemisphere. And here’s why: If you want to experience safari life, and it’s extremely popular these days for the people who can afford it, you fly into Maun. Safari and expedition companies set up offices or headquarters in this tiny town. Safari-bound tourists deplane and stroll into this little terminal in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. Every plane is met by a dozen or more guides from different camps spread out all across the Kalahari in southern Africa. They basically pick up their charges at the gate and take them away on the adventure of a lifetime. Maun is ground zero for bush plane activity. A handful of adventurers pile their brood into customized Range Rovers and Land Cruisers modified to handle eight to a dozen passengers in open seating, like a small double-decker bus in London, and drive to their camps. The vast majority of travelers board two- and four-seater planes that carry them to the camps by bush pilots, making Maun quite the bustling hub. Planes buzz in and out of there like mosquitoes.