Owner Will Ford was fortifying himself for the Saturday night rush at Eight Mile Creek, a New York City restaurant. He bit into a medallion of skewered, char-grilled meat, one of the restaurant’s best sellers. It looked like lamb and smelled like beef, but it was neither. It was kangaroo.
Ford, who hails from rural South Australia and specializes in Australian haute cuisine, said American attitudes toward food have broadened “from sustenance to pleasure.” He said, “People are looking for new ways to please themselves.”
Ostrich, rattlesnake, emu and other exotic or specialty meats are appearing on more dinner plates in the U.S. High protein diet fads, the mad cow threat and more adventuresome palates are helping to spur their popularity.
A typical American eats 195 pounds of meat (red meat, poultry and fish) a year, or 57 pounds more a year than in the 1950s, according to a 2002 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Availability, affordability and dual-income households have contributed to the increase, the report said. And while beef, poultry, pork and veal are the market leaders, specialty game and meat are beginning to share refrigerator space in supermarkets across the country.
Russ McCurdy, owner of Seattle’s Finest Exotic Meats in Shoreline, Wash., said his company has grown from 20 percent to 40 percent a year for each of the past five years to $3 million in sales this year. Although this may be small potatoes compared with beef and poultry giant Tyson Foods, which had sales of $24.5 billion according to its 2003 annual report, specialty game operators say theirs is a growth industry.
Myra Charleston, at-large director of the 600-member Dallas-based American Emu Association, said the demand for emu is through the roof. Business picked up so much that farmers who haven’t hatched birds “in the last couple of years have fired up their incubators,” Charleston said. The U.S. industry processed an estimated 7,813 emus in 2003, which is a 35 percent increase from 2002, she said.
Specialty meat is marketed as a healthful alternative to mainstream beef, pork and poultry–especially animals injected with steroids and antibiotics. Most specialty animals are raised on grass diets and are free of antibiotics and growth hormones. Proponents extol the meat for its flavor, while beef advocates say Americans prefer the best cuts from steakhouses because they taste better, with animals fed not only on grass but also corn and oats.
The health-conscious consumer points to other differences. A 3.6-ounce serving of hamburger meat has about 18 fat grams and about 87 milligrams of cholesterol. The same serving size of skinless emu has 3 grams of fat and about 45 milligrams of cholesterol, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Game and specialty meats are nothing new to some local markets.
“Ground buffalo has grown in popularity,” said Jo Natale, a spokeswoman for Wegmans Food Markets of Rochester, N.Y. Natale said venison, ostrich and poussin are among the store’s best sellers.
How safe is it?
Farm-raised exotic animals (such as buffalo, above) are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, while the Food Safety Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees the inspection of slaughterhouses for cleanliness.
Inspection is a voluntary procedure, and producers pay $43.60 per hour for the service, said Steven Cohen, a spokesman for the food safety office.
“The industry wants to show the public that the meat is safe and clean,” McCurdy said. “This gives protection to all of us.”–COLUMBIA SERVICE NEWS
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Drew Sottardi (dsottardi@tribune.com)
