OT: Exotic Meats

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

I meant as food.  The grashoppers were stir fried and served with sauce.  Ants were the honey ants.  I also ate ordinary ants in a wilderness survival class.  

But THIS is scary...
http://www.tofurkey.com/products/tofurkyfeasts.htm

The roast tatses fine, but it looks like a roasted nerf ball.
-Ed

[Derf]

Ed wrote:

> I meant as food.  The grashoppers were stir fried and served
> with sauce.  Ants were the honey ants.  I also ate ordinary
> ants in a wilderness survival class.  
>

I know; I guess I should have added an emoticon like or to show I was being silly.


> But THIS is scary...
> http://www.tofurkey.com/products/tofurkyfeasts.htm
>
But possibly not as scary as this.

[Mofo Rising]

I too seek out exotic food to try.  Like others I've had rattlesnake, ostrich, bear and the like.  A few notes:

Alligator: Had this at a seafood place breaded and deep fried like popcorn shrimp.  I thought it tasted like shrimp and chicken, with a very soft texture.  But breading and deep frying is what you do when you don't want to taste something.

Buffalo: is delicious.  Like beef with a deeper flavor.

Lemon ants: In Ecuador, one of our guides broke a branch that contained a bunch of these tiny ants.  They're about the size of sugar ants, but when you pop them in your mouth they taste like little bursts of lemon.  I figured they would be great if you could keep them in a little shaker on the table to add to your food.

Stink eggs: Not "meat".  I'm Tlingit (Native Alaskan), and my grandmas make a delicacy they call "stink eggs".  They are salmon eggs which are buried in the ground until they ferment.  I wouldn't say I enjoyed the experience, but it does take like. . .

Seal oil: Rendered seal fat.  It's illegal for you to have, but I can enjoy it.  It's good if you dip dried fish in it, or herring eggs.

Seafood: I don't view as exotic anymore.  Especially since you can get such a great variety as sushi.

So, that's a small list, I guess.

Have a lot of money to spend?



Post Edited (11-04-05 16:24)

[AndyC]

Nobody seems to have mentioned emu. A few farmers around here started raising them years back. The birds have a very lean, red meat (makes a decent hamburger), and are valued for some other  products, like oil. Around here, it never really got beyond the promotional stages as an alternative to traditional livestock, and they don't promote it like they did when they started, but it's still pretty readily available at farmers' markets and one or two restaurants.

Actually, I've eaten a good deal of exotic meat at farm shows, where the alternative farmers set up food booths to promote bison, elk, deer, emu, etc., by selling burgers and sausages and such. Local festivals are also good for that. I've often thought a checklist, like birdwatchers use, might be fun. "Let's see, I've had buffalo, veal, venison......."

I used to get my share of game meat any time I visited my brother, who was quite the hunter when he lived in more remote parts of the country (I'd like to see the list he could come up with). Mostly venison - deer steak, deer sausage, deer salami, deer burgers.

Also have eaten rabbit, frog legs, snails, squid, quail, and a pepperoni stick made from alligator. That's all I can remember at the moment.



Post Edited (11-05-05 02:34)

[Ash]

odinn7 wrote:

> ASHTHECAT wrote:
>
> >
> > Upper middle class America is pretty sheltered and really
> > f**king lame.
>
> Ow...Ash, man, you hurt me deep.


Actually Odinn...I modified that sentence.
It sounded bad so I changed it.

[Scott]

The most exotic for me Deer Meat (Venicin), Buffalo, Bat Ears, Pigs Blood (soupy)

What............ nobody has had a Baby Slouth Burger?



Post Edited (11-04-05 18:49)

[dean]

AndyC wrote:

>Nobody seems to have mentioned emu.

Another national 'icon' being sold off for food.  Gotta love it!

On the Australian coat of arms we have an Emu and a Kangaroo, both of which were chosen because they were 1. Native, 2. Cannot move backwards [thus symbolising progress] and it now seems that 3. They both make a great snack!

Yum Yum, national pride has never been so tasty!

[Shadowphile]

alligator while in florida - I have to agree with the 'tough  chewie and greasy' description.  Then again it was deep fried.

frogs legs  - tastes like chicken

Emu burgers -not too far from beef

horse while in Quebec - strongly flavoured   Do I get extra points for knowing the horse's name (Wisefly), occupation (racehorse), value ($5 000 000), status (uninsured) and method of death (ran headfirst into a post and broke it's own neck)

goat while in Morocco, along with a number of fish I didn't recognize

squid (calamari)
snails (escargot)

rabbit
duck
moose
deer

and of course sushi and sashimi

As an aside, if Ben Franklin had gotten his way, the turkey would have been the American emblem.  Does that mean eagle would have become the traditional Thanksgiving feast?

[Scott]

I'm not real crazy about goat. I remember that the one I had was dry (bad cook). Didn't think of it different at the time, but looking back at it now it can be considered exotic. Haven't run into an opportunity to eat goat since. Haven't sought out goat since. There was a snow storm and I couldn't get home, so I stayed overnight somewhere and had goat one evening.  Talk about roughing it...................

[Alan Smithee]

Fried eagle.
Candied owl anus.

[Neville]

Depends what you might consider exotic. In the part of my country I live in we eat snails, just like the French. Usually they are accompanied with garlic mayonnaise or onion & tomato sauce. I'm not a big fan of that dish, but I tried it quite often when I was a child, since it is very popular

Also have tried the frog ankles at the local Chinese, but they're not my coup of tea.

Oh, and in some bars you can find some interesting things, like fried stralings or other pigeons, all kinds of tripes or baked goat heads. I like the heads quite a lot, but they don't have much meat, brains apart, and they are messy to eat, so I rarely order them. Occasionally you can also find boar meat, if you live in a village, because the locals hunt them now and then to prevent them to eat their crops. It's very tasty, just like pork but with a stronger flavour and less fat.

Older people have memories, back from many years ago, when they had the strangest things to eat. My grandfather once claimed he ate a grilled hedgedog, and that another time he was tricked into eating a cat, thinking he was eating rabbit.

[Shadowphile]

There has been a persistant rumour about one of the local chinese food places has been using cats in place of chicken.   I've never eaten there but a friend said he had the chicken one night and it was amazing.  He's gone back several times since and it has never been the same......

[peter johnson]

Mofo mentions Stink Eggs, which are fermented --
In Iceland, I've had fermented shark, which is buried in volcanic sand for 6mos., near the shore, so that it's pickled in brine -- has the consistency of cheese, but yes, very smelly -- actually quite flavorful --
You should eat your fermented shark with Brenevin, aka. The Black Death, which is a currant infused neutral grain spirit.
I just had great Haggis & Blood Pudding in Scotland -
In India, the head of the fish is considered the best part, and only offered to guests.  You have never tested the bounds of hospitality until you've had a fish eyeball the size of a large olive pop in your mouth . . .
peter johnson/denny crane

[AndyC]

Mmmm, haggis and blood pudding. Haven't had either in a few years. Used to be a pub in town that put on a big celebration for Robbie Burns day, and put haggis on the menu for that one day, served with potatoes and turnips. It was pretty tasty. The owner told me he'd had to go pretty far to find a butcher shop with good haggis. Not a popular dish in Canada, for the most part.

I love black pudding sliced and fried with eggs for breakfast. Again, haven't had that in quite a few years (a buddy and I were double dating a couple of English girls around 1997), but now I'm tempted to pick some up. It's readily available in supermarkets here, which comes as kind of a surprise. Actually, I was also surprised to find rabbits in the meat section, which I've been tempted to buy but ultimately deterred by the price. Grocery stores have come a long way since I was a kid.

[Amanda]

I'm of Norwegian heritage, so of course I've been made to try - Lutefisk.   For those of you who don't have any idea what that is =  dried fish soaked in lye.  Basically.