X-treme Meatby Jeffrey A. Tucker
So who better to take advantage of the remarkable new availability of exotic meats online? True, there is a challenge here. I've never made Yak, Boar, Elk, or Kangaroo. But the site provides cooking tips, and I do have the benefit of my vast experience.
I was working as a high-speed dish cleaner at a steakhouse when the catering company next door made it known they had unwashed dishes piling to the heavens. So of course they called, and my boss generously agreed to let them borrow my services. My new place of employment was an interesting one. The owner wasn't around much, and when he was he was on the phone fighting with his girlfriend. But the staff of high-school drop-outs was competent. We served thousands of people at large events in civic centers and the like.
The dozens of deep ovens – not self-cleaning and never cleaned by hand – rose to the ceiling. Once they were filled with beef roasts. My coworker was pulling some hot ones out of the oven and they rolled off the rack and fell 10 feet to the ground. They bounced like basketballs, splattering grease everywhere. Then they rolled in circles around the room, and, because the room slanted to the middle, ended up in a big pile at the center drain. Of course we picked them up and put them on the cart and served them. Hey, the customers were only paying $7 a plate!
In any case, back to extreme meats. This men's club called and said that they want to have a dinner featuring exotic meat, preferably manly stuff like wild boar and elephant.
How to cook this stuff? Well, the boss was out of town and left me with the job. What else but salt and pepper and bake them in our extreme ovens? So they were thawed, salted, peppered, and cooked. Some very strange smells emanated through the kitchen that day, and so we began focusing on the all-important matter of preparing the actual dinner environment. One of my co-workers suggested beer. There had to be lots of it. And it had to be available long before the food was presented with great ceremony.
So the manly men gather and drank and slapped each other on the back. The whole time we could only peek through the kitchen window and watch to make sure that everyone was happy and having more fun that sobriety permits.
As for the cooks, we wouldn't get near the stuff. The closest I got to the actual meat was in scraping the baked-on skin off the large tin platters. What a mess! The dinner was Friday night. I worked until late on Saturday to get the mess cleaned up. But the folks got precisely what they were looking for.
March 16, 2007 Jeffrey Tucker [send him mail] is editorial vice president of www.Mises.org. Comment on the Mises blog. Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com |
Somehow
people doubt that this is true, but it is a fact: I was a professional
chef with a highly regarded firm that served exotic meats such as
elephant, giraffe, snake. 
So
it happened this way. 
Some
things about that job were fun, such as using the massive fire hose
that gushed boiling hot water to wash the kitchen floor at the end
of the day. Chemicals everywhere! 
It's
very strange how we reused the butter that people didn't eat. Folks
would leave those pats of butter right on their plate for no good
reason, so why not preserve them for others to enjoy? I can vaguely
recall that we did that once with rolls, but I'm not sure about
that. 
No
problem! We dug up a catalog and ordered the weirdest stuff we could
find. The meat arrived in a freezer truck, bags and bags of frozen
and nondescript meat. The elephant and snake, however, was recognizable
because it had the skin on the outside. 
And
so the big night came, and there was beer, beer, beer, lots of it,
for a full hour, and at very low prices, alongside manly music with
jungle beats. We found a tape that had cawing birds and screeching
monkeys too. 
Then
and only then did we bring out the gourmet creations, on large platters
decorated with plenty of fruits and parsley, and put them on tables
with urns and flowers. Ooohs and aaaaaahs and large yelps rose from
the gathering. And they devoured it madly, each trying to outdo
the other in expressions of devotion to the elephant and tiger meat.
So
who better to throw a post-Easter party of exotic meats? But there
will be no gimmicks this time. I'll serve wine, plenty of it, and
the music will be from the late middle ages. There will be fresh
butter at my party. I might even use some spices other than salt
and pepper.