Eating Large Flightless Birds

"Eat Me"
this photo originally appeared in The Economist, June 10th 1995 on page 26, "Sticking their necks out"

For the last few months I've been working on reducing the amount of fat in my diet. Mostly it's been pretty easy - eliminate fried foods and cheese; when I do use dairy products, use low fat or non-fat versions (I find 1% milk is okay in coffee, though skim is pretty gross; I find low fat cream cheese and sour cream are fine); use egg beaters or a similar product instead of eggs; eat turkey or skinless chicken rather than red meat.

Giving up fried foods and changing my eating habits has really been pretty easy for me to do, except for giving up cheese and red meat. I heard a few times that ostrich meat was a good replacement for beef - lower in fat but still tasty. Once was in the Economist article mentioned above.

Then one day I went to Bread & Circus to do some grocery shopping and I saw that they now carried ostrich and emu meat, and an idea was spawned. Matthew and I decided to invite a bunch of friends to grill ostrich and emu and compare them with beef .

Preparation

We prepared the ostrich, emu and beef identically. Each was sliced into small pieces and marinated in a sauce made of tamari, salt, black pepper, garlic and rosemary. The meat was allowed to marinate in the refrigerator for several hours and then was skewered and grilled over charcoal. The ostrich was surprisingly bloody. Both the ostrich and the emu showed little fat, where the beef was quite well marbled.

Reactions

People after eating ostrich

Several friends who came to sample the large flightless bird meat thought we were joking. So did the neighbors, at first. But everyone who wasn't keeping kosher tried some, and almost everyone liked it. Our neighbors thought the emu tasted somewhat like lamb. Corwin thought the ostrich tasted like beef, "with a chicken aftertaste".

Matthew's emu sandwich

The day afterwards, Matthew had an emu sandwich with the leftovers and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Propoganda

This information is taken from a pamphlet distributed by Bread and Circus, published by Vermont Specialty Meats, Inc. You can call them at 802 849-6324 or fax them at 802 849-6005 if you want more info (like a copy of the pamplet). The pamphlet talks about how ostriches and emu have low environmental impact because they need little area to graze, and gives nutritional information.

Conclusions

Most people prefered the emu. Several people commented that the ostrich seemed gamey. Only one person was squicked by the ostrich and even she tried some. Overall it the experiment was a success.

Resources on the Web

Here are some Emu and Ostrich resources we've found on the web. I've weeded out several that were pure hype ("Make zillions butchering large flightless birds!").

Emu Production

Emu Production and the Future

Emu, Ostrich, and Rhea or Ratites in general.

Ostrich Production

Ratites

The Oklahoma State Ostrich Book