Alpaca Meat
August 13th 2007 04:46
This gets number one on my website search stats every single month without fail. Not ‘alpacas’, or ‘alpacas for sale’ or anything thing like that, it’s alpaca meat that the people are interested in.
I guess it makes perfect sense. People ARE overwhelmingly obsessed with food, and what else we can shove in our faces to satisfy our voracious appetite for something “NEW”. The massive obesity problem we are facing in developed countries establishes this well and truly.
In Australia, people are well accustomed to eating sheep, cows, pigs and chickens – they’re pretty well the mainstays in our society. Deer, crocodile, kangaroo, emu and so on are all out there, but still very much on the fringe, I think.
They haven’t quite won over the people and made it into the meat section at Woollies yet anyway – except on a few rare occasions that is: Someone was trying to get camel meat into the supermarkets here a while back: Patties, sausages and steaks all in a tray with a pretty label ‘BBQ pack’. But it wasn’t very long before they’d given up again (Maybe they ran out of camels!).
I don’t raise alpacas for meat (I prefer them alive and eating the grass), but I do have a paragraph or two on my website about alpaca meat. Just explaining that yes, people do eat it and what it tastes like – lamb, apparently.
There’s quite a lot to be considered and written about this subject, especially in relation to the attitudes between different people and cultures when it comes to food items. Very interesting considering how people can, and do, move around the world these days. Do you know what’s in your neighbour’s freezer?
Liable to open up a big can of worms that. (Looks like spaghetti – Mmmmm – can you eat that?)
Its just that I’ve often thought it a bit strange when people ask me “Can you eat alpacas?” - Well of cause you can. They’re made of meat, just like us.
I guess it makes perfect sense. People ARE overwhelmingly obsessed with food, and what else we can shove in our faces to satisfy our voracious appetite for something “NEW”. The massive obesity problem we are facing in developed countries establishes this well and truly.
In Australia, people are well accustomed to eating sheep, cows, pigs and chickens – they’re pretty well the mainstays in our society. Deer, crocodile, kangaroo, emu and so on are all out there, but still very much on the fringe, I think.
They haven’t quite won over the people and made it into the meat section at Woollies yet anyway – except on a few rare occasions that is: Someone was trying to get camel meat into the supermarkets here a while back: Patties, sausages and steaks all in a tray with a pretty label ‘BBQ pack’. But it wasn’t very long before they’d given up again (Maybe they ran out of camels!).
I don’t raise alpacas for meat (I prefer them alive and eating the grass), but I do have a paragraph or two on my website about alpaca meat. Just explaining that yes, people do eat it and what it tastes like – lamb, apparently.
There’s quite a lot to be considered and written about this subject, especially in relation to the attitudes between different people and cultures when it comes to food items. Very interesting considering how people can, and do, move around the world these days. Do you know what’s in your neighbour’s freezer?
Liable to open up a big can of worms that. (Looks like spaghetti – Mmmmm – can you eat that?)
Its just that I’ve often thought it a bit strange when people ask me “Can you eat alpacas?” - Well of cause you can. They’re made of meat, just like us.
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Comment by Always Eighteen
Always Eighteen: Japan Edition
I didn't know about alpacas until today, let along eating their meat!
Have you tasted it before? What's it like?
Comment by Rosemary
Alpaca Notes - Tasmania
I'm a vegetarian so no, haven't tasted alpaca. I have spoken to alpaca breeders who have though and they described it as like "sweet lamb" and quite a lean meat. (The unfortunate alpaca's name was Monty).