I like the fact that the Potted Meat Museum has Kerry/Edwards gifts for your dog...
Posted on 12/01/2006 2:33:53 PM PST by shrinkermd
When a food safety inspector walked into a market in Queens, he noticed the store had an interesting special posted on its front window: 12 beefy armadillos. In Brooklyn, inspectors found 15 pounds of iguana meat at a West Indian market and 200 pounds of cow lungs for sale at another market. At a West African grocery in Manhattan, the store was selling smoked rodent meat from a refrigerated display case. An inspector quickly seized a couple pounds of it.
All of it was headed for the dinner table. All of it was also illegal.
Authorities say the discoveries are part of a larger trend in which markets across New York are buying meat and other foods from unregulated sources and selling them to an immigrant population accustomed to more exotic fare.
State regulators have responded by stepping up enforcement, confiscating 65 percent more food through September than they did in all of 2005.
The seizures also cast a spotlight on the eating habits of this ethnically diverse city, where everything from turtles and fish paste to frogs and duck feet make their way onto people's plates.
"At one time or another, we've probably seen about everything," said Joseph Corby, director of the state's Division of Food Safety and Inspection.
In an attempt to stamp out the activity, Corby's agency has ramped up efforts, working with the Food and Drug Administration, to prevent this illicit food from reaching store shelves.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Trailer Park Groundhog
Take gun (.22 cal is good). Load with bullets and accurately fire at head [Ed. Note: We're assuming the groundhog's head, not your own].
Skin groundhog and gut him. Clean out carcass with waterhose.
Cut critter into quarters.
Make up a big batch of your favorite marinade (make sure it has oil and vinegar to help tenderize the groundhog).
Throw marinade and critter pieces into plastic trash bag and marinade around 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator.
Take out marinated critter pieces and throw on the grill on low heat. Cook until rare to medium rare. Do not overcook, critter will dry out.
And no one likes their critter dry.
Country-Style Groundhog
1 groundhog
1/2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 c. cooking oil
1/2 tsp. sugar
Clean and skin as soon as possible. Remove all sent glands. Cut off head, feet and tail. Cure in cool place by suspending from hook approximately 4 days.
When ready to cook, lard according to recipe.
Dress groundhog as you would a rabbit, removing the small sacs in the back and under the forearm. Soak groundhog overnight in salted water to remove wild flavor.
Combine flour, salt and pepper; rub into groundhog pieces. Brown grounhog in hot oil in skillet; sprinkle with sugar. Reduce heat and add 1/2 cup water. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes or until tender. Remove cover and cook for 10 minutes longer.
Boil & Bake Groundhog from "Cookin' With Home Storage" by Peggy Layton and Vicki Tate.
Skin and clean the groundhog. Boil until tender. Remove from the water and season with salt, pepper and red pepper. Bake in an oven at 350°F. or cook over an open fire.
I've had armadillo and found it tasty and lean, much like a very good cut of pork. I didn't find it greasy at all. It may have been how it was prepared. (It was definitely armadillo; I was there when my guide caught it). I think the concern with armadillo is that the meat may carry the pathogen for Hansen's disease (aka, leprosy).
Many of the other things mentioned in the article are normal ethnic food. A Norwegian breakfast buffet (at least, in Norway) is not complete without fish paste. I passed but the Norwegians are in general a remarkably fit and healthy people so perhaps they are on to something.
All North American mammals and birds are edible, however, they are not guaranteed to be palatable.
The reason the city is cracking down on these vendors seems less a matter of what they serve than one of licensing in the Bloomnanny empire.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Barf-o-rama! Those look awful.
What you said...mostly. Here's the local version:
Gobs and gobs of ground up gopher guts,
Chopped up monkey meat,
Little baby parakeets,
Fried eye balls
Floating in a bowl of blood.
And you forgot your spoon.
Agreed. But - as the illegals become more and more mainstream - so will their dinner choices.
Here's what we sang right after that:
Scab sandwich good for you
Monkey's vomit, camel's snot
chicken's eyeballs chopped in two
Scab sandwich good for you!
Hoof-and-mouth disease is what happens to food animals. Foot-in-mouth is an affliction that visits people. ;)
Yo Fred, why you lettin' Digger take pictures of Matilda on a bun?
I like the fact that the Potted Meat Museum has Kerry/Edwards gifts for your dog...
"Roasted something on a stick" . . . sounds like every food my Renaissance Festival sells! :)
The last case of Hoof in mouth disease in the US was resultant from individuals feeding leftover foreign meat sources to their hogs. Hoof in mouth disease is a Rhinovirus that can become airborne and travel as much as 50 miles in a day with air currents and still be viable. Hoof In Mouth disease introduced into our food production system would be catastrophic.
"Leftover foreign meat sources" sounds like something I wouldn't feed to pigs I like.
Now, there's a headline I would love to see. It would be a helluva lot more good for New York and America!
GROSS ..... Don't y'all love multiculturalism now. s/
Don't y'all love some damn Yankee makin' fun of our Louisiana cookin'?
First off, food and fur are two different things. Second, were the cats killed humanely? If skinning cats is such a horror, where's your sympathy for mink and rabbits and calves?
The second thing that comes to mind is how many would object to their precious little dog or cat appearing on a hook in the local grocery for sale (so long as it was FDA approved)?
*My* dog or cat is mine. Plenty of folks have pet hogs, and that Babe in the movie and Wilbur in Charlotte's Web were cute as all get-out. Does that mean we should stop eating pork? What you're missing is that one act is not moral and another immoral because you find one of them icky and not the other.A little intellectual consistency is all I'm asking for.
I don't care to go to any store and see a filthy rat, a cat, a dog, an iguana or an armadillo.
Then vote with your feet and dollars -- don't go to stores that offer those meats.
My culture does not eat these animals
If "your culture" is, broadly, American, then there are a lot of folks eating armadillo, possum, rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, and all kinds of other critters I'm not in a hurry to try. Dogs, cats, and rats have all found their way to the table, but generally only in desperate times. Iguanas aren't widespread fare, because they're not indigenous to North America, but Americans do eat the reptiles we do have around, from gators to rattlesnakes to Gila monsters.
When I moved out of my mom's house to fend for myself, I tried making chili according to Mom's recipe (more of a philosophy than a recipe, really). Mine was never as good, of course. Only after some prodding did I find out that Mom used venison -- she had friends who hunted,, and she didn't want to tell us when we were kids that we were eating Bambi. I need to make friends with more hunters so I can get hold of some good venison for my next batch of chili.
and the proof is that the FDA is seeking this stuff out.
The FDA regulates hygeine, not matters of taste. If there's enough demand for exotic meats, someone will set up a duly regulated slaughterhouse and butcher to serve the market. The issue is that these markets serve a relatively small market and have flown under the government's radar.
Assimilate is the issue. When are people here going to notice the difference?
So now assimilating means abandoning cuisine that isn't "American," however you define it? Oh, I hope not. I'm not that old, but when I was a kid, spaghetti, tacos and Sweet and Sour Pork were about as exotic as ethnic cuisine got -- and that in a fairly large city. Now, I'm not more than a ten-minute drive from Indian, Thai, Lebanese, Brazilian, Japanese, Moroccan and Cuban restaurants, among others.
Mock "diversity" if you must, but in areas like food and music, I find it a good thing. Joining the melting pot doesn't mean you don't bring your own ingredients with you. I, for one, have no problem with eating a massaman curry while listening to a good samba band and following up with a single-malt scotch. Only in America.
If these folks want to eat cat and dog or rat and iguana they can go to their country and eat it. I am sure they would expect me to assimilate.
Not really. When I was in Thailand, no one seemed perturbed by the fact that I mostly stuck with the familiar chicken and shellfish. I eventually tried the squid, and wasn't that impressed.
I did get a lecture on the various ways of preparing grasshoppers and centipedes, but I suspect they were just messing with the farang's head. I was never offered bugs at the table, and didn't see them in the market stalls. The old woman selling dried fish heads out of a wicker basket was kind of interesting, though.
And you have to get pretty far off the beaten path to find a country without a McDonald's, a KFC, or if not a big chain outlet, a burger or pizza joint of some kind. One rule of thumb: If you see Diet Coke (called Coke Light in much of the world), you're in a well-touristed area where you can expect to find Western cuisine.
An amusing (at least to me) aside: Khao San Road, the young-and-cheap tourist district of Bangkok (think a lot of backpackers and youth hostels) had a whole lot of falafel stands. Apparently, Thailand is a popular destination for young Israelis.
I am no animal rights advocate. I simply find it rather uncivilized and primative.
That's nothing but habit speaking. The belief that The Things I'm Used to are The Way Things Should Be. Why -- on what principle -- is killing and eating a dog less civilized than killing and eating a pig? As pets, pigs are as intelligent, loyal and loving as dogs. Anatomically, they're more similar to humans than any other non-primate -- that's why pigs are used for heart valve replacement surgery.
I suppose you can't wait for the living worms/larva next to the potato salad in the deli?
I'd rather not. I probably wouldn't go back to that deli. But I wouldn't call on the government to shut them down for serving stuff I don't like.
Shall we accept cannibalism too--afterall it is their culture? We just need to get the FDA to approve it and go along with their tribal laws.
There is a clear line between killing people for food, which is a crime everywhere, and killing other animals, which is done in every city and county every day. You have offered no such clear line between killing animals you like a lot, which is uncivilized and primitive, and killing animals you don't like so much, which is fine and dandy.
If there is a rational moral, ethical or legal principle under which it's acceptable to eat a hog but nor a dog, I have yet to hear it. If there's a legitimate distinction, I'd think someone would be able to articulate it. Since no one has, I can only attribute it to prejudice.
LOL,,,"Roasted" is good,,,I had to draw the line at the
"Fish-Heads and Rice",(bad),Korean C-Rations were worse;0)
Many years ago, a Chinese restaurant in NJ was caught serving road-kill venison, deer being quite numerous there. The radio news said they were serving "Moo Goo Gai Bambi" :) Another was serving cat meat, as I recall. I once gave a very fresh road-kill deer to a Laotian refugee family and they were glad to get it.
"Mmmmmmmm, illegal mystery meat."
Funny thing is, that site is from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. They're still trying to create some kind of market demand for Nutria so enterprising individuals will thin out the population for them. I wish them luck with that.
I think what the Nutria needs is a new name. No one would pause to consider a Patagonian Toothfish on the menu, but when they were renamed Chilean Sea Bass, they became all kinds of trendy. I suggest renaming the nutria either the bayou beaver or the Louisiana swamp mink, and then watch the coats fly off the shelves.
No one wants to buy boiled orange-toothed swamp rat, but call it bayou grind etouffée and put Emeril's signature on the box, and hoo-boy!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.