Product Central
Dispatches from the Reviews Editor's desk
Wednesday 13 December 2006, 2:22 PM
Camel sacrificed by airline workers
Generally speaking, camels are safe over here in Blighty, confined as they are to zoos, safari parks and the odd circus. Not the life your average member of the Camelidae might have chosen, perhaps, but better than falling into the hands of predatory Turkish Airlines workers at Istanbul's international airport.
As the Beeb reports, an unfortunate beast — whether Dromedary (one hump) or Bactrian (two humps) was not specified — was recently slaughtered and consumed by maintenance workers to celebrate the final delivery in a 100-plane order. The authorities, however, took a dim view of such extreme staff canteen arrangements, and have suspended the boss of the workers involved.
Which gets me thinking: what's the oddest animal you've ever eaten? I've managed nothing more exotic than fried insects in Japan, washed down with fish tea. However, my brother, when on VSO in Sarawak many years ago, was disconcerted to find that the tasty meat being fed to him by friendly longhouse-dwelling tribesmen in the rainforest was the distinctly endangered Sun Bear.
PreviousComments on this post
I'll tell you what I want to eat. The Orkney Vole. It came to the Orkneys with the first neolithic settlers after the last ice age - imported, like them, from the south-west Mediterranean - and was a food animal. We know this by the way its bones are distributed in middens. Whether it was a tasty snack or used as a more substantial part of the diet, I don't know - it's unusually large for a vole, but even so you'd be hard pushed to erect many menhirs on just the one.
On the plus side, it's a common critter and not on any endangered list, so I'm at liberty to capture and consume as many as I like - and it's not particularly hard to track and bag. On the minus side, I can find no vole recipes. The closest I've found is a Roman concoction of giant puffball stuffed with minced dormouse.
And please, no jokes about vole-a-vents.
R
If preparing Fricassee of Polecat (a very acquired and challenging taste) it is essential to use free range produce
However I can recommend Fricassee of Orkney Vole without reservation ... marianade the vole joints in Glenmorangie, place in well oiled pressure cooker with mushrooms and onion and fry 'till sealed.
Add stock, bouquet garni, lemon juice and seasoning and cook at
15-lb for 15 minutes. When cool, thicken with flour and milk and cook for 3-4 minutes without replacing the cover.
Alternatively tastes very good raw.
