The Long, Slow Trek To Get Americans To Eat Camel Meat

The first time Somali-American chef Jamal Hashi put camel meat on his menu in Minneapolis, it didn't go well. He tried grinding it into a burger and using chunks of it in a spicy stew, but no matter, the texture was bad and the sales were worse. "It was like chewing on a patty of rubber bands," he said of the burger.

At its best, camel meat tastes much like lean beef. But certain cuts can be tough, and if the meat comes from an old camel, it can also taste gamey. Hashi had used a shoulder cut, and neither he nor his customers were happy with the results.

Camels may first have been domesticated in the region around Somalia, where they have long been prized for their nutritious milk and meat, and as a mode of transport in the arid environment. "We are a people who constantly travel," says Hashi. "This is our livestock."

Which is why Hashi wanted to bring the humped-beast's meat to Minneapolis, home to the largest population of Somalis in America. So, four years later, he tried again — in 2010. At the time, Hashi owned Safari Express, an East African grill at Minneapolis' Midtown Global Market. But it was when he applied for a booth at the Minnesota State Fair — a place famous for crazy creations like Spam sushi and deep-fried Snickers — that Hashi thought to reintroduce the traditional "meat of kings" to an American audience. When the fair gave him the green light, Hashi purchased two tons of wild camel from R.W. Meats, a Minnesota-based halal importer and a leading distributor of camel meat in America.

This time, Hashi served the camel doner-kebab style: a skewer of spiced, ground meat mixed with egg and breadcrumbs. It was a hit. He sold out of camel meat in four days. Soon after, he started offering the "The Hashi Burger" at Safari Express, and began ordering a pallet of meat every few months — each of which arrived from, of all places, central Australia.

To understand how Australia became the world's No. 1 source for camel meat — soothing the culinary homesickness of thousands of Somalis in Minnesota along the way — you have to understand why camels are a problem in the outback: They're totally feral, and have caused huge headaches.

In the mid-1800s, the British introduced one-humped Arabian camels from Pakistan and India to help with transport across the vast, arid landscape of Australia. The animals proved hardy and reliable, but with the arrival of the railroad in the early 20th century, the camels became obsolete and were freed. Unchecked by predators, their population swelled.

Restaurateur Jamal Hashi, who fled to the U.S. with his family during Somalia's civil war, takes pride in bringing the feeling of home to Somali-Americans in Minnesota, which has the largest population of Somalis in America.

"By the late 1990s, it had become obvious that something had to be done," says Quentin Hart, former manager of the Australian government's Feral Camel Management Project (AFCMP).

Though camels tend to roam in small groups, they congregate en masse to look for water during dry spells. That notion of camels storing water in their humps? Not true. The humps store fat, and while this is a good source of energy for trekking across arid landscapes, Hart says it is "a bit of a myth" that camels can survive for a long time in extreme conditions. Like any animal, they get thirsty. And when they get thirsty, they get desperate.

In 2009, 6,000 thirsty camels stormed the outback town of Docker River, population 350. The creatures, each of which can weigh a thousand pounds or more, butted into water tanks, tore faucets from walls, overran the town's airstrip and stranded terrified residents in their homes.

A study found that camels also did a great deal of damage to the region's biodiversity and environment, trampling vegetation and stunting plant regeneration. And when they died in or near water sources, their carcasses fouled drinking water for Aboriginal communities.

A few months before the Docker River stampede, the Australian government put up the equivalent of about $15.5 million to launch the AFCMP, a four-year effort to manage more than a half-million camels loose in the countryside. With helicopters and marksmen, Australia culled some 135,000 camels between 2009 and 2013, and processed another 15,000 for human consumption. The meat camels were slaughtered according to halal standards, then shipped to places like Dubai, home to camel hot dogs and the world's first camel-milk chocolate company, and Minnesota.

Still, wrangling wild camels in remote areas isn't easy, and it continues to frustrate both suppliers and buyers today. The central question, according to Hart, is whether the quantity and quality of the wild meat is reliable.

To ensure the stability of camel commerce in the long-term, he believes the animals would have to be domesticated. But with no strong incentive for cattle ranchers to pursue camel meat — in Australia, it fetches a market price comparable to beef but costs more to produce — a farmed future seems far off, says Hart.

That said, eating feral camels does have environmental benefits. It's in line with researchers who urge a "pestatarian" diet — eating animals that are environmental pests — as a sustainable alternative to a diet of mainstream meat. And it's one arguably more palatable than eating insects or lab-grown burgers. Wild game is free of antibiotics and growth hormones, and tends to be leaner than its farmed relatives.

Before Hashi and his family fled Somalia at the start of the civil war in the 1990s, he grew up in the capital of Mogadishu and spent summers in a nomad town just north of the city. He remembers drinking lots of camel milk, which is low in fat and full of Vitamin C, and eating camel meat, which is low in saturated fat and high in protein. Hashi plans to highlight the meat — using camel trim, a tender cut from below the camel's hump — in adobo-chipotle camel sliders at his newest Minneapolis restaurant, which is slated to open in late February.

Hashi cooks camel meat during a demonstration at Safari Restaurant. He will be offering camel sliders at his newest Minneapolis restaurant, set to open in late February.

Many Somalis in Minneapolis treat camel as they would back home: as a celebration food. Randy Weinstein, owner of R.W. Meats, says many of his clients place two orders a week: the first for goat and beef, and the second with the addition of camel, to serve at weekend weddings and other events.

Weinstein started importing camel about 15 years ago, after Somali retailers in the Twin Cities expressed a longing for the taste of home. Now his wife calls him the "camel king," and he is expanding his inventory to include pre-ground camel meat. The majority of his sales are to halal shops and restaurants in areas where the Somali population is growing, such as Portland, Maine, or Seattle. Weinstein believes that Somali chefs in those places could bring camel to a larger audience.

"The challenge is getting mainstream America to open their eyes to this product," says Weinstein. But he has faith this will happen in the next few years, as East African dishes become more common in America's food scene.

At Safari Express, which is now owned by one of Hashi's brothers, the camel burger isn't cheap — it costs $13.50 with a drink and fries — but Jamal Mohamed, a cashier, says it is still the best-selling item, typically selling about 40 a week. Garnished with grilled pineapple, peppers, onions and a generous dousing of creamy "secret sauce," the one-pound patty is soft and juicy and tastes a lot like beef.

Anastasia Flemming, a frequent customer at Safari Express, hasn't ordered the burger, but says she's been converted after having a bite of her friend's. "I'd come back for it," she says.

RED GHOST OF EAGLE CREEK

Most folks will tell you camels are not found in Arizona’s high country. Truth is, those adaptable beasts can thrive in just about any kind of terrain. The U.S. Army introduced camels to the Southwest back in the 1850s, using them as beasts of burden while surveying a road across northern Arizona. But, the Civil War interrupted the great camel experiment, and most of the homely critters were sold at auction. A few were turned loose to run wild—and therein lies the basis for the legend of Red Ghost. The story begins back in 1883 at a lonely ranch near Eagle Creek in southeastern Arizona. The Apache wars were drawing to a close. However, a few renegade bands were on the prowl, keeping isolated ranches in a constant state of siege. Early one morning, two men rode out to check on the livestock leaving their wives at the ranch with the children. About midmorning, one of the women went down to the spring to fetch a bucket of water while the other remained in the house with the children. Suddenly one of the dogs began to bark ferociously. The woman inside the house heard a terrifying scream. Looking out the window, she saw a huge, reddish-hued beast run by with a devilish-looking creature strapped on its back.

The frightened woman barricaded herself in the house and waited anxiously for the men to return. That night they found the body of the other woman, trampled to death. Next day tracks were found, cloven hoof prints much larger than those of a horse, along with long strands of reddish hair. A few days later, a party of prospectors near Clifton were awakened by the sound of thundering hoofs and ear-piercing screams. Their tent collapsed, and the men clawed their way out of the tangle just in time to see a gigantic creature run off in the moonlight. The next day, they too, found huge clovenhoof prints and long, red strands of hair clinging to the brush. Naturally these stories grew and were embellished by local raconteurs. One man claimed he saw the beast kill and eat a grizzly bear. Another insisted he had chased the Red Ghost, only to have it disappear before his eyes.

A few months after the incident with the miners, Cyrus Hamblin, a rancher on the Salt River, rode up on the animal while rounding up cows. Hamblin recognized the beast as a camel, with something tied to its back that resembled the skeleton of a man. Although Hamblin had a reputation as an honest man and one not given to tall tales, many refused to believe his story. Several weeks later, over on the Verde River, the camel was spotted again, this time by another group of prospectors. They, too, saw something attached to the animal’s back. Grabbing their weapons they fired at the camel but missed. The animal bolted and ran, causing a piece of the strange object to fall to the ground. What the miners saw made the hair bristle on their necks. On the ground lay a human skull with some parts of flesh and hair still attached. A few days later, the Red Ghost struck again. This time the victims’ were teamsters camped beside a lonely road. They said they were awakened in the middle of the night by a loud scream. According to the terrified drivers, a creature at least 30-feet-tall knocked over two freight wagons and generally raised hell with the camp. The men ran for their lives and hid in the brush. Returning the next day, they found cloven-hoof prints and red strands of hair.

About a year later, a cowboy near Phoenix came upon the Red Ghost eating grass in a corral. Traditionally, cowboys have been unable to resist the temptation to rope anything that wears hair, and this fellow was no exception. He built a fast loop in his rope and tossed it over the camel’s head. Suddenly the angry beast turned and charged. The cowboy’s horse tried to dodge, but to no avail. Horse and rider went down, and as the camel galloped off in a cloud of dust, the astonished cowboy recognized the skeletal remains of a man lashed to its back. During the next few years, stories of the Red Ghost grew to legendary proportions. The creature made its last appearance nine years later in eastern Arizona. A rancher awoke one morning and saw the huge animal casually grazing in his garden. He drew a careful bead with his trusty Winchester and dropped the beast with one shot. An examination of the corpse convinced all that this was indeed the fabled Red Ghost. The animal’s back was heavily scarred from rawhide strips that had been used to tie down the body of a man. Some of the leather strands had cut into the camel’s flesh. But how the human body came to be attached to the back of the camel remains a cruel mystery.

This story was also used in the old "Death Valley Days" series titled "The Red Ghost of Eagle Creek".

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