So, I was feeling adventurous and decided to do something new by eating some wild meat available in Australia - Emu, Kangaroo and Crocodile. Aren't I a bit of a daredevil?
Interesting fact - Emu and Kangaroo are Australia's national animals featuring on their coat of arms and everything. That said, how Crocodile entered this equation, I'll never know. Perhaps the jerky makers were thinking - hey, let's make this wild meat thing more -freaky- interesting. Anyway, Australia is apparently the only Country/Continent (remember it is both) that eats it's own national animals. Perhaps Nigeria should take the cue and start eating Horses and Eagles. See? A good solution to the problem of wild Horses roaming in Lagos. Also, where are all those Horses that Gov. Obiano imported to Nigeria and gifted the Police? Hmm
Back to the review. The last time I tried eating anything wild (after my shaky attempt at Snail) was back in Nigeria and the only thing I could summon the courage to try was Antelope, out of about 4 or 5 choices that included Grasscutter and some other animals I can't/don't want to remember. I've forgotten what the Antelope really tasted or felt like but I seem to remember it being white like cooked pork and tasted nice enough for me to eat a whole piece - to be fair though, I had it as pepper soup and everyone knows pepper will make anything taste nice.
However, with Emu, Kangaroo and Crocodile, the experience was an entirely different matter. The most important thing to remember about this review is that all 3 types of meat sucked! Yikes! I don't know if it's the meat themselves, or if it's because they were made into jerky (think kilishi) where for some reason, sugar/sweetener is part of the ingredients. To be fair, regular Australian beef jerky that I tasted was nice so I blame the meat!
The Emu for me was the worst of the lot. Its texture and taste reminded me of eating liver - which I hate (I'll rather deal with the rubbery texture of lungs and gizzard or the long-term chewing commitment that comes with cartilages/tendons AKA akwara anu AKA atakata eloo). I personally consider liver the worst of all giblets. I find that softness that just falls apart in your mouth very unappealing. The exact same reason I dislike minced meat and meatballs. As a meat lover that still has teeth, give me normal meat chunks anyday. So, I was hoping that since the Emu is a bird (relation to Ostrich be damned), I expected it to be similar to Chicken/Turkey but nah, the Emu missed the mark by so many points. In summary... big NO for me.
As for the Kangaroo, it sort of felt like chewing on very strong and rubbery beef. I couldn't quite grasp the taste of it, again probably because it's been made into jerky, which I think masked its original taste. It was the only meat I considered going back to bite off another piece from to see if I could really figure it out and perhaps go all the way... didn't work! I suppose I have to finally summon courage to buy regular Kangaroo meat from the stores and eat before deciding if I like it or not. Hehe, we'll see
I don't know why but I already had a negative bias towards the Crocodile right from the time of purchase. Which is why it was very surprising to find it the least confronting of the three. The look and texture is sort of like that of dry stock fish but doesn't quite taste the same. It tasted a bit off, like when stock fish is just beginning to get stale/mouldy from not being stored properly in a dry place. Whether that is the taste of actual Crocodile or if this was as a result of being made into jerky, or if the meat itself was getting stale - I have no idea and to be honest, I'm not particularly curious.
So that's the story of my foray into the world of wild meat. I will not be repeating this in a long long time - thank you very much. If you have tried wild meat, what was your experience?
xoxo...
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