N.Y. Cracks Down on Mystery Meats

[NVMojo]

NEW YORK (AP) - A food safety inspector noticed an interesting special posted in the front window of a market in Queens: 12 beefy armadillos.

In Brooklyn, inspectors found 15 pounds of iguana meat at a West Indian market and 200 pounds of cow lungs for sale at another store. A West African grocery in Manhattan sold smoked rodent meat from a refrigerated display case.

All of it was headed for the dinner table. All of it was also illegal.

Authorities say the discoveries are part of a larger trend in which markets across New York are buying meat and other foods from unregulated sources and selling them to an immigrant population accustomed to more exotic fare. State regulators have stepped up enforcement, confiscating 65 percent more food - 1.6 million pounds - through September than they did in all of 2005.

In this ethnically diverse city, everything from turtles and fish paste to frogs and duck feet make their way onto people's plates.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2006/dec/02/120204344.html

[Big Kahuna]

1. My Brother confescates alot of that stuff at the Atlanta airport

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2836463&mesg_id=2836463

[NVMojo]

2. good grief! And no one at DU paid any attention ...just like the rest of USA

we are sitting ducks while our Prez yells "terror, terror, terror" and does nothing.

[Renew Deal]

13. I live in NY

And I can tell you that it's not nearly that dramatic. This stuff is not mainstream. It's mostly limited to extremely ethnic mom and pop restaurants.

[acmejack]

6. It Is A Very Serious Issue That People Are Largely Unaware of.

It should scare the hell out of people. As we've seen already with the anthrax, bird flu scare, SARS, ebola, Crichton novels, terror threats, Steven King's Stand, and this item a fast evolving biologic has to be one of our greatest areas of concern. I'm quite concerned about this kind of thing.

Of course, there is a limit to what can be done in preparation. New Orleans demonstrated we're far from that threshold.

edit: Here is a great BBC Educational Piece on the Topic! The Cost Of Bush Meat

[rug]

8. Something about "pathogen" in the title nudges me to move on.

[wickerwoman]

14. Bird flu and mad cow disease

both originated in common domesticated animal, not in exotic meats. I'd be a hell of a lot more concerned about something coming out of a factory farm that your Peruvian neighbor eating guinea pig in the privacy of his or her own home.

[Bonobo]

3. Bastards sell "bush meat" there too...

And no, that "Bush" either. I might actually be happy if that were true. No, its monkeys and even apes...

[alfredo]

4. It's the in thing for rich people to serve endangered species

at dinners.

[NVMojo]

5. sick bastards ...

[alfredo]

9. It's a problem world wide. Pushing China into becoming a

capitalist country may have hastened the extinction of many endangered creatures.

I had a friend tell me back in the early seventies that Nixon opening China could be the worst thing to happen to the human race. I think it isn't just humans who will suffer from a consumerist China. Rich Chinese businessmen will make sure the Tiger will become extinct.

[TheDebbieDee]

10. Hey! Didn't they make a movie called "The Freshman"

about this very thing. Rich people paying thousands of dollars to join an exclusive supper club where a member of an endagered species was cooked for dinner every month?

Also, an episode of "Angel" was based on a dinner in which the main dish was werewolf......

[trof]

16. You bet, Deb. Brando & Broderick.

Clark Kellogg is a young man starting his first year at film school in New York City. After a small time crook steals all his belongings, Clark meets Carmine "Jimmy the Toucan" Sabatini, an "importer" bearing a startling resemblance to a certain cinematic godfather. When Sabatini makes Clark an offer he can't refuse, he finds himself caught up in a caper involving endangered species and fine dining.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099615/plotsummary

I think komodo dragon was the entree.

[hedgehog]

20. Have you seen the documentary about it?

I think it's called The Freshman because the man brings in such fresh meat.

[UndertheOcean]

7. You know not all cultures have a western style diet ...

Making meat traditionally eaten by other cultures seems arbitrary to me

[EFerrari]

11. So true. When I started buying produce in our "Chinatown",

I walked by one of those windows with chickens hanging in the window with their poor dead heads still on. It looked like a crime scene to this Californian and there went chicken out of my diet. lol

[Cleita]

22. Dear friend.

If you lived where I once lived in the past, the chickens were brought out to you live. You selected the one you liked and then you took it home, killed it, hung it, plucked it and gutted it yourself, or maybe your cook did. The chicken was undoubtedly fresh.

[Blue_Tires]

12. yeesh

time to speed up my plans to go vegan

[trof]

15. Aw, man? I have 'fond' memories of mystery meat.

We had it about once a week in the dining hall when I was in college.
It was some kind of meat-like patty, not really ground, and not quite shredded, loaded with gristle, and smothered in a thick gelatinous gravy.
Nobody could ever figure out what it was.

[NickB79]

17. Most of that doesn't seem all that bad

I've eaten alligator before, so iquana wouldn't be much different. We eat every other part of the cow, so I wouldn't think lungs would be any more of an issue than hamburger or t-bone. I personally wouldn't eat rodents, but there is an upscale restaurant here in Minneapolis that serves guinea pig.

Hell, I've eaten snapping turtle, squirrel, rabbit, bear, deer, elk, and even woodchuck. So long as it isn't endangered or carrying a potentially dangerous disease (and then, cooking should take care of that), I don't see the problem with more exotic foods.

[Chovexani]

19. The problem is not the exoticness, it's the complete lack of regulation

This article is not talking about stuff from Whole Foods, or upscale restaurants. These are little mom and pop operations who get their meat from god knows where, where the cleanliness standards are not up to par. As shitty as the FDA is here, we at least have an FDA and some semblance of oversight. Many places don't.

Believe me, I was born and raised in Brooklyn in a heavily Caribbean neighborhood and the stench alone from some of the little markets was enough to make me cross the street. This article is really no surprise to me, because it's been going on for years. I've seen the buckets of frogs in Chinatown for as long as I can remember (I never understood why the authorities would bust stores for selling Louis Vuitton knockoffs and completely ignore some of the questionable shit at the food market next door).

This is not me being racist or applying Western standards to other cultures. I personally wouldn't eat rodent or whatever but I'm not going to stop the next person. There's nothing wrong with other cultures trying to keep their traditional diets (hell there are people who think sushi's exotic and gross, and I eat it all the time). The problem is the lack of oversight that goes on overseas with the suppliers of this stuff. It's long past time the FDA and local health departments started cracking down on it.

[GliderGuider]

18. I developed a real fondness for smoked horse meat

My father took the family along on his sabbatical year in Holland in 1957, and we all developed a real taste for smoked horse meat. It's sold in very thin slices, like prosciutto, and has a very strong, slightly salty flavour. I recently found that a nearby Dutch deli sells it, and it's just like I remember. I served it at a party, but didn't get many takers.

My sister went out on a bush hunting expedition in Australia a couple of years ago. The party was led by three aboriginal women, and the quarry was goanna, a largish lizard. They caught one and baked it in a trench in the ground filled with embers and earth. She said it didn't taste at all like chicken.

[Ciggies and coffee]

21. If the customers did not make a complaint

A small business owner should have the freedom to sell whatever he wants.
If the customer doesn't want something, don't have to buy.
If a population has had these eating habits for centuries,
it proves that these habits are harmless, as they are living proof.


"illicit food" wtf?


I would bet that the large chain stores that sell food
are lovin' this.