26 March 2025

Rare or strange food…

Well i jost got an idea. If youre up for it then share the story behind the rarest or most strange mammal youve eaten, there has to be som good stories or notes out there.

I’ll start myself.  Ive eaten Okapi! Yes ive eaten “the unicorn”….

 

Before you start pointing fingers at me, le me tell you my story.

When i was a teenager my granmother worked at The Museum of Natural History” in Copenhagen. At the time some cultural afficinados thought it was a good idea to have an opera festival in a park next to Copenhagen Zoo.  In the Zoo there was a couple of Okapis, they still have that species, and as it turned out one of the Okapis didn’t fancy opera, it got stressed and in the end it was euthanized. I’m sure it would have appreciated Metal just like me. The Okapi was sent to the museum were my grandmother worked and she and other thought it was fun to try to taste it. So she brought some of the meat home and that its how i ended up eating Okapi. I’ve head other stories of what have been eaten at that kind of museums and i know people that are alive today that have tasted Great Auk…

If you have a fun story, feel free to share 🙂

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Post author

Lars Michael Nielsen
Conservationist and guide. Father of two. I’ve worked with education and guiding most of my life but at the moment im working in an engineering company with tasks conserning protected species and nature. I’m one of those birders turned more and more into the amazing world of mammals and got hooked. I don’t knwof if i have any favorite mammals but seing Iberian Lynx in Spain and Humpback Whales at an arms length in the Ice Fjord of Ilulissat was amazing experiences. I was born in a hut in the Swedish forests and grew up partly there and partly in Denmark where i live now with my two daughters.    
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5 Comments

  • 26 March 2025
    RatioTile

    In Taiwan by Sun Moon Lake I’ve had Sika (most definitely farmed) and Reeves’ Muntjac.

  • 26 March 2025
    Lennartv

    Yes! Time for the eatlist :). I know of some birders that have such a list as well. I haven’t got very good stories myself. The most exotic thing I’ve eaten is probably piranha in the Barba Azul Nature Reserve. But I’m sure it must have been a Beni endemic :). It was a very good piranha though, I’ve heard that in other places they taste a lot worse.

  • 26 March 2025
    JeffHigdon

    I grew up eating lots of wild game in Newfoundland, nothing overly rare or exotic, but mammals like moose, caribou, snowshoe hares, harp seals, and black bears.

    Over my several decades researching Arctic mammals I’ve eaten pretty much all of the options – narwhal, beluga and bowhead whales, caribou, muskox, polar bear, Arctic hare, Atlantic walrus, and ringed and bearded seals. Neither are particularly rare, but the most exotic would probably be narwhal and walrus. For walrus I have eaten it fresh and fermented, and I’ve also eaten clams from a walrus stomach. I tried ringed seal eyeballs twice, but it wasn’t any better the second time than it was the first. Of all these species, polar bear is probably the one folks find the most surprising.

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  • 27 March 2025
    roylesafaris

    You know people who are alive who ate great auk? That species died out in the 1840-50’s? How did they preserve the meat for decades, unless you know people who are nearly 200 years old?!?

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    • 27 March 2025
      Lars Michael Nielsen

      Yes. It’s preserved in either alcohol or formalin (formaldehyde solution). So im not quite sure how healthy a snack it was. It was at a christmas party at the museum. One of them is the amazing professor emeritus Jon Fjeldså, the closest you come to a living Darwin today. I’m sure he has one of the coolest eatlists you can find…
      https://www.coursera.org/instructor/jonfjeldsaa

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