Chef Marsia Taha adds caiman to her cooking at Gustu

Gustu is one of the best gastronomic restaurants in the country and its menu includes an innovative proposal to enhance Bolivian cuisine: the chef Marsia Taha’s dishes include alligator meat.

This is done by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Proposal to include Bolivian Amazon cuisine The country’s existing sustainable production.

It should be noted that the lizard has been hunted illegally and violently for many years, but through conservation and the use of WS and The Tacana Indigenous Council (Cipta) achieved control over the animal population.

“In the jungle, people cook it like pig skin; for health reasons, they overcook it and make it with the same skin so that it does not shrink. They also use the same preparation techniques they use for fish: such as tacuara (cooking inside a bamboo stem), grilling or roasting on palm leaves, or sudado (a soup with tomatoes, onions, garlic, chilies, cilantro, peels and pieces of lizards – “, The chef said this in an interview with El País.

It is worth noting that in each community of the Bolivian jungle, the alligator lizard is cooked differently, and now at Gustu Restaurant, it is done this way to preserve the aroma, texture and taste of the alligator lizard. It has a fast-curing, smoky, and raw aroma.

By this time, the community had accepted meat consumption as a habitual food and it had become commercialized. Supermarkets in Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and La Paz.