I had wild rabbit at a restaurant where the chef cooked meat he hunted himself. It had a really strong flavour I couldn’t quite name. I could see other people enjoying it, but not me personally.
There was a sign that warned diners to watch out for free prizes (shotgun pellets). I didn’t come across any, but I was wary of chewing too hard in case I did.
Here I see a lot of people who have been served badly prepared game. For any meat that tastes too gamey, if you’re not sure how to prepare it, there are some tricks that work pretty much everytime:
- Make an infusion of ginger by boiling it for half an hour. Lot of ginger, the water must taste spicy. Then soak the meat in it overnight. It won’t really live a gingery taste in the meat, so it’s good for most preparations.
- Don’t roast, but braise. Red wine, juniper berries, rosemary, cloves, bayleaves, and laurel are good with most wild animals and musky meats: deer, wild boar, mutton, rock goat, etc etc. Sheepmeat and goatmeat can also go with a lot of cumin, turmeric, chili, cinnamon and cardamom, if you want a more central Asian vibe.
Oyster. Anything with the consistency of snot that you’re supposed to swallow without chewing isn’t food. I can make my own salt water that tastes much less disgusting.
I quite enjoy a half dozen sea-snots (just fresh with a wedge of lemon please), but I can see the lack of appeal.
Tucking into fresh oysters with lemon juice and tobasco is one of the only times I enjoy being alive
tucking in to anything salty with lemon and tabasco is also pretty good though
You can totally chew them
I don’t hate myself that much, though.
You’re not supposed to chew them?! I love oysters but I chew them up.
I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to chew them. I don’t know how you’re supposed to get any of the oyster flavour otherwise.
Hear me out. Have you tried them grilled in garlic butter with a little sprinkle of parmesan?
If it’s not for you then you won’t get any hate from me. I just wanted to throw that out there.
As an oyster fan, I can confirm that different species make a pretty enormous* difference to both flavour and texture.
*within the confines of slimy salty shellfish meat
Any “big game”. Moose taste like swamp.
Venison can be good if it’s properly butchered and stored. It so often isn’t though. People will shoot a deer then leave it to hang for a day in 50-60 degree weather. Just gross.
Bears are too greasy. And they’re too smart, eating them is just bad karma.
A lot of game meat can be good, people just have no clue what to do with the processing side of it. They’ll spend thousands of dollars buying the most ridiculous gear to kill the damn thing, and then just fail at butchering and preserving. Hunting is the easy part.
As someone who just bought land and is learning to hunt, this is a very interesting comment.
Most people make the mistake of harvesting old bulls. The young ones are tasty.
They’ll spend thousands of dollars buying the most ridiculous gear to kill the damn thing, and then just fail at butchering and preserving. Hunting is the easy part.
Sounds like advice that should be remembered.
Crocodile can be a bit hit and miss. Supposedly ‘tastes just like chicken’ but there was an extra flavour I can’t describe.
I can’t speak to crocodile, but I have eaten a lot of gator. If it’s not prepared properly it goes from tasting like water chicken to tasting like swamp thang.
From my experience, between gator and frog you have
Gator: chicken with a hint of fish
Frog: fish with a hint of chicken
An undercooked venison burger. I can’t remember what it tasted like when I ate it, but coming back up it was very unpleasant
Cockroach (if that counts) and rat.
What’s the story with the rat
We’re just glossing over the cockroach, huh?
I had a salt and pepper fried cockroach once. It was like a papery gusher with questionable insides
Those words in that order are a pretty wild ride.
I ate a chicken ball dipped in spicy peanut sauce one time because my dad told me it was a chicken ball. It was the testicle of a chicken. It actually tasted fine before I found out what it was.
Woof. I haven’t had nearly the same adventures in meat as you have, but I can say that duck tongue is gross.
Another one of those things that taste pretty ok if you don’t know what it is. I think that’s why hotdogs are popular.
Street food vendor was selling kabobs. Later found them catching and cleaning rats in a nearby alley.
Yikes, did you notice something was off when you ate it?
It was seasoned really heavily. Tasted pretty bad as I recall but honestly my memory of the actual taste and texture has been overrun by the memory of finding out what I just ate.
You said not lamb but lamb. Nothing will ever taste worse than the lamb steak I had from a high end Brazilian churrascaria once. It straight up had the taste and texture of poop. Thinking about it makes me gag.
That’s also where I learned how much I hate filet mignon
What would your favourite meats be?
I’m honestly not a big meat eater but venison is good. I’m a bigger fan of sausages and smoked meats.
Uni (sea urchin) at a Japanese restaurant. It was like cold fishy jelly. Although I’m told that fresh uni is different. Not gonna try it again unless someone else at the table orders it.
I think uni is overrated as well. It’s not bad, but overrated.
yeah, not a fan; I thought it tasted remarkably of how piss smells.
camel
Dude, camel fat smells and tastes so bad
Perch and Catfish are pretty awful. Catfish more for the texture. Perch just tastes bad.
I always wanted to try catfish, and there was a restaurant I really like that does everything else really well, so I tried it and… Nah. Tasted like fishy dirt meat. I’ve had bad duck, too.
Tasted like fishy dirt meat
I’m not a fish-eater in general, but I am an avid fisherman (I just catch them, the wife eats them,) so I’ve heard a lot of stories from my fellow anglers (which should, of course, be taken with a grain of salt, there’s a reason they’re called “fish stories”)
There is a persistent rumor I’ve heard that some people will take catfish and other bottom-feeders like carp home alive to let them swim around in a bathtub of clean water for a day or two to sort of flush all of the mud and everything out of their system before cleaning and cooking them
Allegedly it’s more of a southern thing.
That’s a really good idea, honestly. If your goal is to eat catfish, that is.
Perch are good if you fry them right. But I live up north where the water stays cooler, I think it makes the fish taste better. You go down south and anything you catch just tastes like swamp.
Whatever perch were were getting in Massachusetts were gross.
I would put catfish above mahi mahi
Mahi Mahi is delicious and has a wonderful texture. As does monkfish.
Oh, man… I’m not a huge fish eater, but I can honestly say some of the best fish fry days I remember were when we couldn’t catch enough walleye to feed everyone. Someone would take a few of us kids out to have us catch a couple dozen perch. Beer battered and fried in a cast iron pan over an open campfire? Perch are effing delicious.
yeah, catfish can be pretty unpleasant.
Kangaroo
I wasn’t a big fan of goat
Gotta be possum. That shit is musky
I tried kangaroo in Australia and it was not good.
Kangaroo tends to either be really good or really bad, nothing in between. Probably down to the quality of the chef, hence why I never cook it at home
A kangaroo steak I had in oz is in the top 5 steaks I’ve ever had
