I Ate An Emu

Well, not a WHOLE emu, but a burger made from emu meat.

Now, I'm not a very adventurous person when it comes to my meat-eating. We attempted full vegetarianism last year, which lasted only 6 months before we faced the reality that we couldn't hack it. We're still mostly vegetarians, but we do eat meat (only the free-range stuff) about once a week or so. I love bacon and burgers too much to give it up forever (Sorry, Mr. Suzuki).

Chris and his mom were at the "meat store" the other week (that's what we call the place where we can buy free range, hormone/antibiotic free meat in Dartmouth) when she spied some emu meat. She decided to buy some for us, so we could try and it out and let her know how it was (guess she's even LESS adventurous than I am!).

Tonight Chris finally convinced me to have it for dinner. I looked online and read that emu meat is very much like lean ground beef. So we made it into burgers to do on the barbecue. Of course, we ran out of propane halfway through cooking them and had to finish them inside on the stove. How come crap like that never happens to Martha Stewart, huh?

And so the verdict is: it doesn't taste like chicken ;). It really does taste a lot like very lean ground beef...with just a hint of 'weirdness' there that I can't describe. The thing is, emu meat is THREE TIMES the price of the free range beef we get from the same place. So it's definitely NOT worth the money.

I've always wondered if all these 'exotic meats' taste like chicken, then why not just EAT CHICKEN? Same goes with emu. It tastes mostly like beef. Just eat beef, people!!!

As a funny aside, Em decided, after eating the top off her bun, that she wasn't going to eat the burger after all. When asked why not, she said, "I just can't eat a little emu." This coming from the kid who scarfs down bacon every chance she gets, knowing full well that a pig died to make that breakfast happen. When we tried explaining that logic to her, she replied that those other animals just weren't as cute as emus (she'd asked to see photos of them online earlier in the day when she'd heard what was on the menu). In the end we decided not to push it. Hell, I wasn't particularly thrilled about eating an emu myself.