Kangaroo vs. Crocodile

Boya redeems himself by eating the weird jerky

I once called my friend Boya a weird-meat wimp. Today he redeemed himself. He recently returned from a trip to Australia with boxes of Crocodile Jerky and Kangaroo Jerky. He also picked up some Emu Jerky, but the jerks at New Zealand customs confiscated it. Apparently Kangaroo and Crocodile meat are OK, but we're not sure why the Emu meat wasn't allowed. Some chap at the airport must be enjoying it now.



Reggie, a real authentic Australian mate

So today we broke out a bottle of Australian wine and even invited an authentic Aussy person to join us for some exotic meat jerky. Wasn't so exotic to him though -- he'd eaten kangaroo many times before. It was my first time, and hopefully not my last, because these jerkies were delicious.



Cammy likes soccer, techno, and crocodile meat

We talked about animal families and I was reminded that kangaroos are marsupials. They look like big rodents to me, and I'd eaten rabbits and rats before, but the taste is different. Of course, it's kinda hard to say, when it's jerky, full of spices and all dried up.

The kangaroo meat was almost black in color and nice and spicy. The crocodile meat was a beige color and flavored sweet and spicy. Both were excellent munchies and good with wine or beer.



The packages are really silly, with all sorts of Australian slang written in the description -- "G'day Mate!" and "fair dinkum good."

Actually I had been wondering this week about if there are species of animals that eat each other. Not like cannibalism, but like two different species that dine on the other if they win a death match. So I suppose the crocodile would fall into this category, at least against man. Some people like to wrestle crocodiles. Does the winner get to eat the loser? I guess sharks vs. man would be another example, although I've never heard of someone wrestling a shark for entertainment. So does this kind of thing exist elsewhere in the animal kingdom? Other than man vs. animal? Anywhere on the food chain?



Speaking of eating shark, did you hear about Yao Ming's wedding?

Yak in Yunnan

On location in Yunnan, Southwest China.

Mom and I recently had a little vacation in Yunnan Province, Southwest China. It was our first time to the region, and we had such a good time, we're already talking about going back. I'll publish a series of stories about Yunnan's weird meat choices over the next few weeks.



Yucky yak steak.

Yunnan borders Tibet, and there are lots of Tibetan people in the area, so naturally, you can find lots of yak meat and yak butter tea. The first we tried was in Dali's old city -- yak steak at a Tibetan theme guesthouse restaurant. It was sweeter than we expected -- sweeter than beef, and not musky like mutton (we expected it to, but were pleasantly surprised, not being big fans of lamb and mutton). This yak steak was tenderized to a flaccid pulp and we shared the leftovers with many of the cute puppies whimpering about. (What is it with Dali and Lijiang -- everyone seems to have a brand new puppy, and they're the most irresistibly cute doggies we've seen anywhere.) We didn't see any on the menu, so we can't tell you if they are as delicious as they are cute.



Little puppy wants some yak scraps.

Next day, before a gorgeous trip up the mountain overlooking Dali and Erhu lake, we had our first yak butter tea. I'm not sure how authentic this one was, but it was by far our favorite of all the yak butter teas we'd try over the next week. It was frothed up like a creamy cappuccino, with sweet-spicy tea (like Indian chai), and yak milk and butter blended into a expertly balanced flavor. Mmmm. One of the culinary highlights of our trip.



Fancy yuppie yak butter tea with frothy yak milk.

Lijiang is further into yak country, so we had the more authentic stuff here. We started with a fine little meal at the infamously named "Flourishing Sanck" [sic] near the village square, which features such chinglish menu doozies as "Potato The Crap". We ordered the stir-fried yak with celery, which was great, and so much better than that sad excuse for a yak steak in Dali. And we ordered the "small pot" of the yak butter tea. This turned out to be an enormous pot enough for 10 people. Completely different from that sophisticated concoction in Dali, this was the real stuff, with a strong yakky-butter smell, and no creaminess. We still liked it, and didn't find it as off-putting as many tourists complain about, but we admit liking the yuppie one better.



Welcome to Flourishing Sanck!

Exploring the charming cobbled-laned village of Lijiang, we found several shacks selling yak jerkies and various dried yak meats. We tasted a lot of these and found them scrumptious.



The spicy fatty one made a nice snack on top of the Jade Snow Mountain. The area around here -- you can see why they're claiming it as the mythical inspiration for Shangri-La. Naxi-Dongba culture is unique -- claims to be the world's only surviving matriarchal society, and the only pictographic language -- and there's an incredible range of herbs, edible plants and mushrooms and flowers.



Atop Jade Snow Mountain (YuLong Shan) north of Lijiang, near Tibet.




Mom, did you fart? Or is that the yak butter tea?

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.