I finally did it! I came to Sapporo and ate bear meat. It was… not good. Very gamey and chewy like leather. Smell can only be described as a bit off…
1925 yen.
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It looks like it was cooked pretty rare?
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Yeah, and they spent a good 20 minutes cooking it, too. The weird part thing, though, is that the parts that were more cooked were tougher and chewier than the raw parts on the inside…
I imagine it would make a decent bear jerky, though.
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I remember reading Karl May books as a child (highly problematic in hindsight, but that’s another story) and his native American characters would praise bear paw as a specialty but only if it has been left out for long enough that maggots appear and soften it. That always intrigued me even if it is probably made up by a German fraudster in prison who had never visited America at the time.
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I wonder whether bear would work as carpaccio.
And now I wonder whether bear meat has parasites in it.
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Does a bear shit in the woods?
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Pretty sure I’ve seen guidance in ye Olde Army survival manual that bear meat always has to be cooked thoroughly as it is always infected with somethingorother. Same with wild pork.
Good luck!
ETA: it specified for Polar bear meat only. So go nuts I guess!
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The good thing about trichinella is that they can be detected in the meat before ingestion by a trained meat inspector. That’s why it’s safe to eat raw pork in Germany, because it’s all being inspected. The same for any hunted boar. And bear, if you have a meat inspector around. I can imagine the Japanese do.
That said, does raw pork count as unusual food?
It’s not to me, it’s a part of my upbringing but I can see how some wouldn’t like it. In other parts of Germany they eat Mett but in Franconia we eat the filling of raw Bratwurst with raw onions instead. It’s definitely one of the foods I miss most.
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I will say, looks like a reasonably spotless tub area, so they’ve got that going for them, but it would look a bit more professional if they’d moved the shampoo and razor out of the way before taking the photo.
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Yeah, but who wants to eat a hairy pig?
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Pricing seems odd. No I don’t want three pounds, I want three one pounds.
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Most unusual food I’ve ever eaten, as in, least likely to have been eaten by any of the other gluttons of the world, was fried dragonfly nymph. It was the stand-in for bar peanuts or goldfish crackers at most of the eateries and bars in Lijiang, at least in the olde-timey-Naxi part of town. Didn’t taste like much, crunchy with salt and a bit of oil, but on a fair number of them you could still work the Alien-inspiring extending jaw in and out.
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As a kid in the 80s in Italy I had fried cows brains a couple times. I’m guessing post-mad cow this doesn’t exist, but I’m not sure.
A few years ago we grilled a whole lamb, and so of course my brother and I decided we had to eat the lamb’s eyeballs. It was, no joke, the closest I’ve come to vomiting when eating something. Perhaps we cooked it wrong, but being able to easily feel the hard lens in your mouth as you bite through the rest of it, the various mix of soft and hard and popping textures, was absolutely vile.
I think Sam Vimes was right that lamb’s eyeballs are a test of your gullibility.
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I used to work at an independent grocery store chain (two stores), and the owner put on a pig roast one year. My manager ate an eyeball.
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That reminds me: I have eaten svið, singed and boiled lamb/sheep’s head. Didn’t eat the eyeball. It tastes smoky and slightly gummy. I think it would be better grilled.
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I’ll often order raw horse meat (basashi) if it’s on the menu when I’m in Japan. When it’s good it’s like the best beef carpaccio but with more flavour. The only time I wasn’t that keen on it was because it came out on a mound of raw sliced onion which was overwhelming.
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I read somewhere that much of how Germans perceive the “Old West” is a result of the “Old Shatterhand” books, written in the late 19th century. I don’t know if there’s any lineage between Old Shatterhand and “One Punch Man.”
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