The scent of brown iguana

[faze]

Date: May 09, 2004 - 10:19 AM
JENNIFER BAIN
SAUCY LADY

The iguana has a Mona Lisa thing going on as he stares obliquely from the label of a can of garrobo soup.

His scaly brown hide blends with his rock perch, his steely expression is unreadable, his plump body looks delectable.

And eat him you can, or at least one of his relatives, inside this 16-ounce "productos Doña Lisa," where shredded brown iguana meat swims in cilantro, garlic and onion-scented broth.

The price tag — $9.50 — might give you pause.

But, imported from El Salvador, this soup promises to be "a natural revitalizer that fortifies the health and strengthens stamina." Some whisper that it's a natural Viagra — or better.


Normally, I take my Latin groceries with a side of sizzling pork-and-cheese pupusas. But while exploring a newly discovered west-end store run by Costa Ricans last week, the unusual garrobo soup catches my eye.

"I know it's expensive, but some people buy it for more power," explains Manuel Marin, who runs the eight-month-old Latin grocery Pura Vida (685 Lansdowne Ave., north of Bloor *****. W., 416-915-0097) with his wife Patricia.

"I don't want to try it," Marin hastily adds. I share the sentiment, staring at the can of "Lizard Lisa" for four days before dipping into it in the line of duty.

It's hard to suddenly develop a taste for iguana.

But in El Salvador and parts of Central America, the meat is considered a delicacy.

According to the Washington Post, wild iguanas once nearly overran El Salvador. But as people chopped them up for stew, and ate their eggs with rice, iguanas nearly disappeared and it became illegal to catch them.

Recently, however, Salvadorans have developed iguana ranches and processing plants to clean, package and freeze iguana meat for export to large American cities with Latin populations, like Washington, New York and Los Angeles. Canned garrobo soup is the newest innovation.

"(Garrobo) is supposed to be an aphrodisiac, so a lot of men like it," says Joanny Devargas, who works for soup distributor All Foods Inc. in Long Island.

Brown-scaled male garrobos are believed to produce tastier meat than their green-scaled female counterparts. The meat is often compared to chicken.

Back at Pura Vida, I buy one can of garrobo soup plus two pork pupusas ($2.50 each).

Torontonians already frequent the small Latin grocery stores in Kensington Market for Spanish fresh cheese, canned hominy and fresh tomatillo, plus the stores' indoor grills where women make hot snacks.

But with our growing Latin population, why hasn't a supermarket-style shop opened?

"A supermarket culture has never been a part of the Latin food-shopping mind-set," writes New York restaurateur Aarón Sanchez in his 2003 cookbook La Comida Del Barrio: Latin-American Cooking In The U.S.A. "We prefer to buy from individual vendors, whose names and faces and accents we know, instead of from a faceless corporation."

Well, that explains why I've never been able to find the newest, shiniest, largest, Latin grocery store in Greater Toronto.

An ad in a free Spanish magazine called Revista La Guida De Toronto leads me to Pura Vida in a large space doors away from the Lansdowne TTC station.

It's part grocery store, part café with satellite television for soccer games, and part multipurpose room with an open kitchen, public Internet terminals and couch.

The simple menu includes the expected pupusas, empanadas, tacos, beans and rice, café con leche, etcetera.

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