08 May 2009

Eating Your National Animals


Just a short musing on eating your national animals or more specifically those animals that make an appearance on your coat of arms. This musing comes about as a result of a grocery shopping trip during the week.

One of the things that I have noticed since being back is the myriad of products available on supermarket shelves that once were the exclusive domain of specialty shops or health food stores. I am not sure that this is indicative of a more health conscious community or just a community that prefers to get all their shopping done in one spot and at the same time.

Anyway, I have noticed that my local Frankins and Woolworths supermarkets stock a wide range of kangaroo meat products from sausages to steaks. I have eaten kangaroo meat on many previous occasions. However, I was pretty certain that Dyah had not eaten kangaroo before, so I thought why not, and bought some sausages.

We ate them for lunch with some steamed veggies.

They were an excellent meal. The meat was gamey but then you would expect such when eating kangaroo meat. We have this running joke in our house at the moment about what things taste like. Will has some floaty toys that he enjoys munching on during his bath. His personal favourite is the turtle. Long story short, it has always been, and continues to be, amusing to me that when people eat some strange meat that the question is; what does it taste like? If the answer is that it tastes like chicken, then why not just eat chicken?

I have also eaten emu meat (and ostrich meat). This means I have eaten both of the animals on the coat of arms of Australia.

So, my question is this; Is there anything inherently wrong in eating the animals that take pride of place on your national coat of arms?

I could never eat the Indonesian national emblem as the Garuda remains a mythical animal as far as I can tell.

11 comments:

Brett said...

Nah, just change the coat of arms. Kanga bangas are awesome!

Rob Baiton said...

Brett...

We Australians cannot even agree on becoming a republic so I do not see much likelihood of getting the kangaroo of the coat of arms or changing it to a sausage.

Kiwis are protected, aren't they?

:D

boneman said...

well, sure enough, an unstated symbol in the USA is the buffalo.
Poor beggars! There's a buffalo farm not seven miles from me here.
No plains, no deer playing about, and the air is always blue with discouraging words.

Indiana's flag is adorned with a bufalo. Doesn't seem to stop the locals from purcahsing said meats.

I'm down to chicken and pork. Sometimes fish if Mom sneaks it in, but for the most part, my conscience pricks me mightily over meat products here.

I can go to any dumpster container in any moderate sized city and pull out enough meat to feed a samll village for a day.
That's what gets to me.
Not so much the what as the holy-cats-how-many-animals-are-butchered ----> plenty.
Way plenty.
In fact, it's funny to hear someone speaking disparagingly about the sixty thousand buls that are killed in the ring in Spain over the course of a year when here? I think i remember that there are tens of thousands of cows marched through the fast food arenas every day.

Geez.

What's the worse case scenario for years of starvation in our life times (so far)?

In 2003 over 25000 people worldwide starved to death everyday.

omigod.

Let me say it again, even though I know it hurts you as much as it hurts me...
25000 PEOPLE STARVED TO DEATH EVERY DAY!!!sorry.
I'll get off the soap box now. Someone probably wants the wood for their grill, eh?

Rob Baiton said...

Boneman...

As always an interesting read, soapbox or not.

I guess I was really focusing on the eating of the national animal. However, I also would guess that when you are hungry (starving) then it is probably irrelevant to ask whether one would or would not eat their national animal.

Unknown said...

I've eaten Roo before... very tasty actually.

I personally think the nationality of the animal has nothing to do with it being tasty.

Rob Baiton said...

Tree...

The point was not so much the "nationality" of the animal itself, but rather should one be eating their national symbols.

After all, the kangaroo is part of the Australian Coat of Arms.

lawgee said...

or shooting them! and using their pelts??

Rob Baiton said...

Lawgee...

Generally, I guess you gotta get 'em out of their skins before you take the next step of eating them. Then again maybe not.

I was not looking at the use of pelts or anything else, but maybe I should have.

lawemu said...

http://armsultan.tumblr.com/post/104859235/this-pic-fires-me-up

check this - dont worry about the roos mate,,,,

jesseb's anything goes said...

Wow great article I guess I'LL guess before I knock eating kangaroo I'll have to try it lol great article.

Rob Baiton said...

Lawemu...

thanks! Go the roos.

Jesseb...

If you can, then you probably should. Life is all about new experiences.