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Strange Meat

Haus of Mystery

18:49 / 09.09.04

Mine's Ostrich.
Tried it in a dead posh dutch restaraunt, and was surprised to find it identical to a really fine steak, except with less fat.
Very nice too. Have to admit slight disappointment that full ostrich sans feathers was not presented upon my plate, but beggars can't be choosers.

Sekhmet

19:14 / 09.09.04

Ostrich makes good jerky snack sticks too.

Does rattlesnake count as weird?

Linus Dunce

19:16 / 09.09.04

Rattlesnake's weird if crocodile is ...

w1rebaby

19:21 / 09.09.04

Probably reindeer. It was in a heavy sauce so I can't tell you if it tasted any different from any other deer or moose or whatever reindeer count as.

bitchiekittie

19:24 / 09.09.04

ostrich (the finest cut of meat EVER) and ostrich burger (so-so at best), buffalo burger (couldn't tell the difference), gator tail (tasted like a cheap cut of frozen, fried chicken, reheated in the microwave)...um, lots of sushi and seafood that regular sushi and seafood eaters would not find weird, but others might. I'm certain I'm missing something, but that's it for now.

I like to eat odd things, if only for the satisfaction of finding something new and delightful, or fairly rejecting the nasty stuff.

Sekhmet

19:43 / 09.09.04

Defining "weird" gets difficult depending on where you're from and what you're used to. Being from the southern U.S. makes some things "normal" food items that might be considered pretty odd elsewhere. Buffalo, crawfish, frog legs, and alligator would probably fall into that category.

Oh, oh, fried grasshoppers! Tried them in Mexico once. Very crunchy. Not much flavor. Sort of like popcorn with legs. Only you have to pull the legs off, the big ones, or they can jump out of the pan.

I just grossed myself out.

grant

19:57 / 09.09.04

Gator tail can be very nice when prepared properly -- tenderized, fried, with lots of lime. I had a nasty gator creole once, tasted like mud and reptile.

I don't know what the "strangest" meat I've eaten is. Uni? (that's raw sea urchin). Kudu biltong (um, antelope jerky)? An anonymous brain in a Jakarta curry restaurant (thought it was cauliflower)? Second grader (less said about this the better, I thought the parents were lying)?

The most challenging wasn't meat at all -- it was a durian, the king of fruits. In the Lonely Planet: Southeast Asia guide, someone described the experience as like eating a fine raspberry custard in a vile public toilet. It wasn't that bad, really. As kimchi is to savory, so durian is to sweet.

Alex's Grandma

20:11 / 09.09.04

An armadillo, on the bone. I wouldn't exactly recommend it.

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

20:17 / 09.09.04

Not meat, exactly, but I've drunk a glass of warm, spiced hare's blood in a fancy restaurant in Annecy, France.

Very nice it was, too, but totally grossed my fellow diners out.

Haus of Mystery

20:26 / 09.09.04

"An anonymous brain in a Jakarta curry restaurant" - Grant

Come on someone...please beat that.

Mazarine

20:45 / 09.09.04

Can't. I'm with fridge on the reindeer, though hopefully I will soon eat an elk burger.

Logos

22:43 / 09.09.04

The Long Pig.

Alex's Grandma

01:07 / 10.09.04

So how was that Logos ?

pointless and uncalled for

07:02 / 10.09.04

Sheep's eyeball.

I can't claim that it beats anonymous brain but I think it's close to being on a par.

Other wierd meats include ants in chocolate, snake, ostrich, emu, kangaroo, sea urchin, turtle, crocodile, alligator, horse, frogs legs, snails, every different kind of raw fish I can lay my hands on, the usual range of game (pigeon, grouse, quail, reindeer, buffalo, wild boar, deer)and some of earths 6+ legged residents.

I'm sure I'm missing stuff out there but its early and I now want a nice tasty deer steak sandwich.

There is very little that I wouldn't eat if presented with the opportunity.

lonely as a cloud...

07:16 / 10.09.04

I stir-fried some crocodile once. Tasted very like white fish, only with a bit more flavour and firmer texture.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

07:22 / 10.09.04

I haven't eaten it, being a non-meat eater, but Manicou is pretty damn odd. And I saw folks eating Manicou.

Sax

07:43 / 10.09.04

I had reindeer once. In Sweden. Near to Christmas.

Grey Area

07:57 / 10.09.04

Chargrilled boa constrictor. Easy to portion, you just slice it like a loaf, and quite succulent. Not the tenderest cut of meat I've ever had, but it wasn't shoe-leather.

sleazenation

08:13 / 10.09.04

Sekhmet said
Being from the southern U.S. makes some things "normal"...

Which lead to such explosion of stereotypes in my brain (predictably, to the theme tune to Deliverance... )

Apparently in the Western Isles it is still reasonably common to fine gannet being served - apparently it tastes like fish...

ghadis

08:13 / 10.09.04

Raw minnows for a bet. They could very well have been alive. Not sure. It was a while back.

Reindeer in Sweden also. Very tasty. And those crickets and grasshoppers in a tin that people often bring back for you from holidays.

If the question was 'What's the weirdest animal you've ever fed to someone else?' My mum once caught me feeding earth worms to my baby brother. He'd obviously had had quite a few and had a huge wriggling mouthfull when she got to the pram. He seemed happy enough though.

Haus of Mystery

08:30 / 10.09.04

Weren't some people fined for barbequeuing a swan in a London Park recently?

sleazenation

08:48 / 10.09.04

Probably.

I believe that legally Swans in the Royal parks belong to the Queen...

Bacon.

Unless I miss my guess, I assume you are talking about the Sun's "Swan Bake" story. This revealed that asylum seekers were killing, cooking and eating the Queen's swans.

On subsequent examination, it transpired that the story was in fact based on eyewitness reports stating, without corrobortation, that people were doing this, and the "asylum seekers" tag applied because the people allegedly doing this were described as "Eastern European-looking".

The Star, not to be outdone, then reported that nine donkeys had disappeared, supplementing this with the strong suggestion that they had been stolen by East African asylum seekers, in order to eat them. I am still waiting, a year on, to discover how they reached this conclusion and how accurate it was. My guess? A load of demagogue-flavoured bollocks.

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:51 / 10.09.04

Tibetan Yack, in the form of a yackburger, in the Hard Yack Cafe in Lhasa.

It just tasted like slightly tougher beef, I think.

Goodness Gracious Meme

09:55 / 10.09.04

on the 'dependent where you're from' thing...

I reasonably regularly see people eat curried fish brains... and way in the flesh-eating past, ate 'em myself.

On the 'mistaken meat' front, a curried 'something' in Bangkok years ago, which I thought was fat noodles, and turned out to be some kind of intestinal thing.

pointless and uncalled for

09:56 / 10.09.04

Incidentally, unless I missed a law being repealled, all wild swans (i.e. on common land) are the property of the Queen.

Lord Morgue

10:03 / 10.09.04

Crocodile jerky and jellyfish salad.
Not at the same time, though.

Haus of Mystery

10:37 / 10.09.04

You're on the money there Haus - that was indeed the story I was thinking of. It'd be so much funnier (and less politically dubious) if it had been a holidaying family from the home-counties camped out in Hyde Park enjoying swan flambe....

No star here laces

14:29 / 10.09.04

Grant otm about durian - it's just about the most revolting thing humans can digest without getting ill. And it's practically a religion in Malaysia.

As for weirdest meat I've eaten, probably conch penis. Makes you very horny (might have been psychosomatic).

grant

15:09 / 10.09.04

How can you tell a conch penis from the rest of it? The whole organism is basically a giant tongue....
(It's pretty common food here, too -- in sushi, in fritters, in chowder, tenderized and blackened in sandwiches.)

Sheep's eyeball.

I can't claim that it beats anonymous brain but I think it's close to being on a par.

Oh, that totally beats anonymous brain. Something that looks at you is way different from a mushy cauliflower that you slowly realize actually came from some animal. Tasted fine, though.

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