SYDNEY -- I had to choke me kangaroo down, sport.
Before me was a beautiful dish, elegantly presented. Grilled meat, covered in Japanese ponzu dressing, on a bed of native Australian beets, warrigl greens and kumera, a kind of sweet potato.
It looked like any other red meat, but this was kangaroo, the meat I – and many other foreigners here -- had been hearing about ... and thinking of trying.
So I stared it down, put the thoughts of what I was eating in the back of my brain and dug in. I didn't savor it, I just tried to get it down as fast
as I could. But guess what -- it wasn't bad. Nothing special, a little gamey. But not bad.
A lot of other visitors to the Olympics have tried it, too, probably as much out of curiosity as anything.
Jennice Kersh is the owner of The Press Table at Olympic Park, which is an offshoot of her rather famous (or infamous) restaurant in Sydney called Edna's Table that specializes in indigenous Australian foods: kangaroo, crocodile, wallaby and emu, along with native vegetables, herbs and spices.
Kersh says foreigners have been flocking to her restaurant.
"The kangaroo is just walking out the door," she said.
That it's not walking out on its own two legs is what's causing a bit of a ruckus down here.
People think Australia, they think kangaroo, all furry and big-eyed. They don't think about it sliced, with beets.
The World League for Protection of Animals is distributing flyers at Olympic Park and in Sydney, urging people to stay away from kangaroo meat. Tying it in with the Games, the WLPA folks are saying it's a crime to eat the Aussies' best athlete (the greatest jumper and runner on the continent, they say in their flyers). And killing or maiming the animals – the nation's symbol -- is needless and cruel.
Paul McCartney and Brigitte Bardot led a campaign to stop Kersh from being allowed to sell kangaroo at Olympic Park, a completely inappropriate place to push the Australians' "new" meat, they say.
Kersh, who grew up eating kangaroo stew, dismisses them both as "middle-aged carrot-killers."
"There's just great sentiment because of Skippy," she said, referring to a popular Aussie cartoon character. "It's an emotional issue. (This controversy) is all Skippy's fault." Kersh and other Aussies who want to see a boom in commercial kangaroo meat praise it for being low in cholesterol and a healthy alternative to beef or mutton.
Halina Thompson of the WLPA claims the killing of kangaroos is just plain brutal.
No matter the controversy, though, people keep walking into Kersh's restaurants and ordering 'roo.
Damn the sacrilege, full speed ahead.
"One of my friends, an Australian, came in and ordered the emu and the kangaroo," said Press Table chef Stuart Daly. "His comment was, `I just ate both animals in our coat of arms.'"
No comments:
Post a Comment