Urban Nature Pictures 3/11, plus some links

[urbpan]

I've been sitting on this hermaphrodite chicken story for a while, and then I heard them talking about it on NPR. I just wanted to use my tag again.

I didn't eat any whale while I was in Greenland, though I saw it for sale. If I'd known it was so forbidden in the US I might have, just for the experience. There they eat the non-endangered Minke whale. If you wanted some meat from an endangered Sei whale, then you could have gone to HUMP, a sushi restaurant in L.A. until recently, but then the Feds shut them down for selling horse and whale meat. (For the record: I am against selling endangered whale meat, very much FOR selling horse meat.)

HEY look at the cool frog!

Comments

[an-sceal.livejournal.com]

I've eaten both whale and seal. The whale was extremely fatty, with a rich, nutty flavour, and the seal was prepared as a jerky, and tasted like someone had taken thousands of fish, fermented them, condensed them into shoe leather, and smoked them.

A former co-irker's neighbour is a member of a native tribe in Canada, and they send him a care package every year. He shared with Joe, and Joe brought it into the office. I don't know what type of whale it was, unfortunately.

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

I don't think I would eat at a restaurant called HUMP no matter what they were serving.

[propaddict.livejournal.com]

I at horse once. It was better than chicken, but probably a bit under beef.

Whale is third on my list of "To Eats", after rattlesnake and fugu. Pretty sure I'll be knocking at least 2 of those off the list when I make it to Japan.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

why are you for selling horse meat?

i think it makes sense in iceland, which has little arable land but a lot of horse-adequate grazing, but i think it's horribly uneconomical for the corn-fed usa. even just building the facilities to feed and slaughter horses is a huge investment that i think would be more economically effective elsewhere.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I'm not in favor of it because it makes industrial or agricultural sense (in general I think livestock operations should be much smaller) but because I think the law prohibiting it is absurd. Click my "horses as meat" tag for previous discussions (where some VERY passionate horse lovers take me to task) but in short, I don't think that horses deserve special status. I feel the same way about cats, and have taken some heat for that, too.

When they round up hundreds of feral horses, I think meat production should be an option. Starting a new meat production facility with captive horses wouldn't make much sense.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

huh. i think that if it doesn't make industrial or economic sense, there's no point in adding it to this country's massively oversized and ill-formed agriculture. particularly in the case of large animals such as horses, which are a whole lot more dangerous to handle than kittens, and also make awesome vectors for food-borne illnesses.

when they round up hundreds of feral horses, they do not have adequate testing or refrigeration facilities to ensure the safety of the food supply on hand. iirc there's one plant in the usa that has any facilities for processing horsemeat, and i strongly suspect they prefer to start with animals that are well-nourished, relatively parasite-free, and trained to lead at least. of which there are plenty at auction at present for a song (whether for meat or other purposes, even), and i don't think they'd welcome another, even-less-well-managed supply.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, but the processing was already happening and was made illegal, which is silly. It wasn't made illegal because of the difficulty or risk involved, but on a solely sentimental basis.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

sure, and the cowboy used to be a vital part of our food supply chain too. nostalgia for the technology of a bygone era is no reason to support an impractical new system to replace something that's already long gone and not much missed.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Still the problem of what to do with those horse carcasses.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i thought earth-movers and lime were standard?

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

though in fact, seeing as how active the local (by which i mean lj) taxidermy-art communities are, i'm not at all uncertain it would be unprofitable for some taxidermy types to be on hand to recover interesting/popular bits (skulls, say). but that would take some organizing, and you still need the lime pits.

[aemiis-zoo.livejournal.com]

I want a hermaphrodite chicken!!!