I was invited to lunch after Mass the other day and the menu consisted of Vaca - Beef; Feijões - Beans; Arroz - Rice; Espaguete - Spaghetti; Galinha - Chicken; Capivara {See Picture above}. The husband had hunted it by the river the day before.The capybara (also capibara) (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) is a semi-aquatic herbivorous animal, the largest of living rodents. It is endemic to most of the tropical and temperate parts of South America east of the Andes, and has been introduced to north-central Florida and possibly other subtropical regions in the United States. It is the only living member of the family Hydrochoeridae.
The animal is also called capivara in Portuguese, and carpincho or chigüire in Spanish. The name originally derives from the Guarani word kapiÿva, meaning roughly "master of the grasses". In English, it is also sometimes called Water Hog.
NOTE: Rodent Family & I'm still alive!!
In the regions along the Paraná river in Southern Brazil, Bolivia, Northern Argentina, and Uruguay, capybaras are occasionally hunted for food and for their leather. The flesh is described as tasting like pork {I AGREE} and has a similar whitish appearance.
Venezuelan farmers who once considered the animal a pest now make a valuable addition to their incomes by selling capybara meat (approximately 400 metric tons annually). The rodents are rounded up in February so that they can be slaughtered and sold just before the onset of Lent, when the meat is in high demand.
The popularity of capybara meat in Venezuela is attributed to a 16th century theological decision by the Roman Catholic Church, wherein, responding to queries by Venezuelan Catholics, the Church declared the capybara meat to be equivalent to fish meat for the purposes of Lent, and thus allowed its consumption during that time. The decision may or may not have been taken on the basis of incomplete or inaccurate descriptions of the capybara available to the Church authorities in Rome; however, this decision was never reversed, and to this day the capybara is the only warm-blooded animal with that status.
(This story should be treated with caution, however, since similar claims have been circulated concerning other semi-aquatic mammals, such as beavers and muskrats.)
