Cuy is guinea pig, it's pretty common meat in Peru as I recall. Balut basically tastes like a hardboiled egg, with a squishy weird textured fuzzy bird in it.. it doesnt taste bad.. but I could do without the texture.
A friend of mines mother was born in Phillipines and told us one day that she could only eat it in the dark. Someone else has told me that guinea pig is "like greasy chicken" but shes an American who spent a year in the Yucatan. Obviously there is more to one kind of cuisine than one region's interpretation, particularly one where they likely don't import many spices.
It's sort of just for Peruvians with a homesick feeling here. I can get it, but it's illegal. The idea is in peru they live under the porch and you eat some on a special occasion. No chickens in Peru at that time. Personally I think it's like most rodents, gamey, stringy, and greasy.
