NY cracks down on illegal mystery meats

Yahoo AP ^ | 1 December 2006 one hour 26 minutes ago | ADAM GOLDMAN, AP Business Writer

[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.

[waverna]

In New York City? One.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

American cuisine has been growing since the nation was founded. How would eating iguana turn the United States into a developing country (at least you didn't use turd world; that's something)? There are already Americans who eat alligator.

[RedQuill]

I had horse in Switzerland. I was tough(er), but not that bad. Try it chilled and raw with Basashi sauce. Good eats.

[ReignOfError]

For those not familiar with them, Nutria are large aquatic rat-like creatures.

At one point, Louisiana cops were encouraged to use nutria for target practice. They were raised on fur ranches until a hurricane blew the pens open, and they've thrived unchecked in the bayoux and started invading the cities. As if they weren't creepy enough otherwise, they have bright orange teeth. Orange. I am not making this up.

In another bid to reduce the supply by increasing the demand, New Orleans chefs were encouraged to create nutria dishes a few years ago. I think both Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Legasse made contributions to the effort. Apparently, it only caught on among -- big surprise -- the French.

In a sort of related note, the Catholic Church in some parts of South American has officially declared the Capybara, the world's largest rodent, to be a fish. They live along and in rivers and look like miniature hippos more than anything. Declaring them a fish was important because it allows devout Catholics to enjoy Capybara meat, a favorite local delicacy, during Lent.

[capydick]

....and 200 pounds of cow lungs for sale at another market.

Fried Cow Lungs, big in Malaysia and coming to a restaurant near you:

[Solamente]

There's another from the "day."

Along with GOOD HUMOR, and MISTER SOFTEE, there used to be other ice cream trucks pushing sugar on us kids. The Bungalo Bar truck was the exact same truck as the Good Humor truck - even the logo design was exact. Anyway we sung:

Bungalo Bar
tastes like tar
Put it in the oven
Tastes like Jack Paar

Whoever put us up to it won that battle.

[rochester_veteran]

Nasher bought the chickens from a poultry market in Brooklyn, and said he didn't know he was violating state law. "In Bangladesh, you didn't have all these rules," he said.

When I was a little kid, I'd go with my Grandmother to the poultry market on Joseph Ave., here in Rochester, NY. They had live chickens and she would pick out the one she wanted and the butcher would chase it down, ring its neck, gut it and pluck and burn off the feathers, right there in front of us without hiding it! Of course, this was a Lithuanian/Polish/German neighborhood back in those days (late 50's, early 60's).

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Depending on what the rodents fed on, how is smoked rodent inherently more disgusting than smoked pig? Haggis and sweetbreads seem far more gross, personally, than rodent meat.

[Solamente]

Whew! I'm not hallucinating!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungalow_Bar

[null and void]

Cazart! How many thousand rats does it take to make a "couple pounds" of smoked rodent meat?

That depends on the rodent....

[Deguello]

There is a reason Robert Lee, Texas is known as Home of The Rabbit Twisters. Dates back to before the Depression.

[null and void]

Cockroaches (people eat roast grasshoppers - why not roaches?).

Grasshoppers are Kosher, cockroaches aren't.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

What exactly is bad about having more food options at your grocery store? The FDA should inspect the food, but the issue shouldn't be whether there are ethnic food sections in food stores.

[ReignOfError]

Are armadillos or iguanas endangered? Otherwise, why can't they sell them as food?

I think the issue isn't the species themselves as much as the fact that they're not slaughtered and butchered at licensed and inspected facilities. Depending on the source, it might be a tricky proposition to do so -- in towns where hunting is popular, butchers have to maintain separate tables and sets of tools for livestock and game.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Grasshoppers are kosher? Not only locusts?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Yep, after reading more of the comments, agree that the issue with most of the freepers is that the meat wasn't inspected. But not all of them.

[null and void]

Yep.

Leviticus 11:21-23
King James Version


21Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;

22Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.

[DallasMike]

My dad lived in the country with his grandparents for a year when he was a kid during the depression and he hunted squirrels for food. Even today, in much of the south, squirrel is considered good eating.

[Chickensoup]

Tastes like Long Pork.

Enlighten me please.

[Centurion2000]

There are already Americans who eat alligator.

Tastes Great and Less Filling too.

Alligator ... the other other other other white meat !