Kudu Jerky from South Africa
My good friend Elizabeth The Vegetarian recently returned from a trip home to her native South Africa with a nice little weird meat treasure for me. She offered, which was generous and thoughtful considering that she's a vegetarian, and considering that the piece of meat could have looked suspicious to the customs people here. Elizabeth The Vegetarian, as it turns out, is one of Weird Meat's greatest fans. Now she's joined the cause, even though her chronic vegetarianism won't allow her to partake in the tasting. Fine, more weird meat for me.
So what did she bring me? I'm told it's "kudu" meat. Dried, smoked and spicy. I'd never heard of a Kudu before, but it appears to be the most attractive buck in the bush:
"The greater kudu is considered by many to be the most handsome of the tragelaphine antelopes, which includes the bongo, eland, nyala, bushbuck and sitatunga." - Wildlives
I've never heard of any of the other antelopes either, but I'm glad to know Elizabeth The Vegetarian appreciates the handsome looks of the kudu above the rest. I've never known anyone to choose their meat according to the attractive looks of the animal, but then perhaps that explains Elizabeth's vegetarianism. Hmm.
Well anyway, this week she met me at a party, and reached into her purse and pulled out a used yellow plastic shopping bag. Inside was a dry, hard, 6-inch stick of Kudu jerky. Just like that, no label, no ziplock. Weird meat.
I was instructed to use a sturdy knife to hack off bite-size pieces and eat the thing with a beer. That's what I just did. It was pretty tasty. I've had wild-hunted North American deer jerky, and this reminded me of that in flavor, texture, and according to the pictures, handsomeness. It's also the only animal I know that has a radio station named after it: KUDU-FM Namibia
The meat was hard and stringy and I used 3 toothpicks and floss to get the stuff out of my left top molar, but I would not recommend it with a French amber ale. (Actually, I believe the Belgians are the only ones making good beer on the European continent.) I liked the kudu jerky, and now I'm looking to see where I can order some more weird jerkies online.
Speaking of South African vegetarians, if you're in San Francisco, check out Joubert's the South African vegetarian restaurant. The food's fabulous and the brothers who run the place are the nicest fellows in town.
posted by Michael @ 7:38 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
It is really weird for me to see something that I eat regularly on the same page as "Vertical pork bone".
In South Africa we call it "biltong", not jerky. A decent biltong shop will stock a variety of beef, ostrich, kudu, and sometimes other buck.
I once mailed Ostrich and Kudu biltong to an American friend of mine who was living in Denmark. Just a hunk of dried meat in a padded bag. It reached her. Reminds me of that postal experiments page :p
We don't buy it in bags or anything. It hangs from the ceiling in the shops. If Elizabeth were South African she would have been as surprised as I am that you would expect it to be in a bag.
You mentioned:"(Actually, I believe the Belgians are the only ones making good beer on the European continent.)"
Actually the Belgians make the best beer IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!! (I'm NOT Belgian, I'm Dutch).
I've tried beers from all over the world, from China, South Africa, Mexico, USA (including BUD, BUD light, Miller, Miller Lite, Coors and a few others. Only Coors is drinkable b.t.w. the rest is, as we say in Holland, horse-piss), but ONLY the Belgians know how to make a real beer!
Well, actually, I believe the US West Coast makes the second best beer, behind the Belgians. It's just so good, we don't export it. We drink it. I don't know anyone in California or Washington or Oregon who drinks Bud or Coors or Miller. I usually don't associate with these sad, misguided people.
If you ever get to try Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, or Anchor Steam, or any other of the hundreds of American microbrews, you'll agree I'm sure.
..... the second best beer, behind the Belgians.
As I said Belgian beer is the best in the world.
I also said Coors is DRINKABLE, I mean, water is also drinkable, not tasteful.
I never drunk the beers you mentioned, but next time I visit the USA, I surely give them a try.
Peter
Darn, maybe that's why I don't like beer. Everything I've had is either horse piss or yellow colored water!
yeah, kudu meat ROCKS
in Cape Town they have a(t least) one restaurant dedicated to local meats. deeeee licious.
iirc, kudu is the biggest antelope in the world, standing about 5 foot or more at the shoulder. rather startling to see.
South Africans eat biltong!
Here is a link to an excellent biltong recipy, complete with photos.
http://www.shebeen.com/biltong/
The origins of Biltong were with the migrant cattle farmers that moved into the interior of Southern Africa in the 1820's. Taking the venison of the ample antelope species and preparing biltong from it, the meat could be stored for months before being consumed.
Biltong is traditionally only made in the winter months since the cold and dry highveld climate is ideally suited to the making of biltong.
A favorite food is the so-called biltong sandwich where sliced biltong, or dried biltong ground to a powdery substance is used as a sandwich filling.
Biltong can be made from virtually any type of venison as well as beef and even ostrich.
Beef, kudu, blesbuck, springbuck, wildebeest and ostrich biltong is the most popular.
Biltong is also sold as vacuum packed pre-cut strips in supermarkets and even the Woolworths chain of supermarkets.
A variation is droëwors, where boerewors (another South African favourite, a type of sausage) is prepared and hung to dry similar to biltong. Droëwors usually differs from ordinary boerewors in that some of the fat from the tail of a sheep is mixed into the suasage mix to provide a higher fact content in the dried wors.
Here's another good internet resource on biltong:
http://www.biltongmakers.com
Since 1994 (when apartheid South Africa was replaced by a democratic black government) more that a million white South Africans have emigrated to Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Canada and the USA. An effect of that diaspora is that Biltong shops and butchers specialising in Boerewors can now be found from Sydney and Perth to London and even New York, in fact wherever South Africans have chosen to make their homes.
Casper Labuschagne
http://www.krooninfo.co.za
Actually, for a good beer, try the Italian "Peroni". It's quite tasty, maybe not the best, but it certainly is one of the "good" European beers.
I'd say Britain and Belgium share first place in the world beer league. They both make very distinctive styles of beer. The rest of the world mostly makes fizzy piss.
There's a reason the big commercial brewers promote colder and colder beer and that is to cover up the foul taste!
I've tried many of the Sierra Nevada beers (available in most UK supermarkets) and while good I'd say still not quite as good as a lot of British and Belgian beers.
Yes, the UK makes damn good beer, up there with Belgium and the western US.
They have Sierra Nevada in the UK now? Surprised to hear that but that's cool. Glad our decent stuff is represented there. I'm actually only crazy about Sierra's Pale Ale, the others are merely ok.
Speaking of, these saints are importing american craft brews into China now... Brooklyn Lager, Acme, Red Seal, etc. Awesome stuff!
Oddly enough I am also a vegetarian from South Africa. And while it shouldn't suprize me it was a bit of a wake-up call to see good old biltong on your page.
I think I know why your friend is a weird meat fan, which I am also fast becoming. I showed your page to some meat-eating friends of mine and their comments were along the lines of "Thanks... I don't want breakfast anymore." or "I want to vomit in my mouth."
As a vegetarian seeing what people eat is interesting, but it all falls into the big box of "things I will never eat" and therefore isn't worrisome at all.
Some of the things must smell a bit though... or don't they?
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