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Friday 30 December 2011

Dine-o-saur

G-Man's family was a little hesitant about dining on dinosaur, but now I know why they are called that - they are delicious! Took most of the day, between other errands, patchy rain and my back going out of whack to keep the fire going, and then to try to guess the difference in conditions between the dry sandy ground of the fire pit on the instruction video and the cold, wet gully we live in. The sandy plains of the NT are NOT, in any way shape or form the same as the bank of a rather soggy creek bank in SE Queensland.

Extraordinary. Amazing process to gut and kill. I think we may have managed to overcook the beastie. Hard to tell when the meat is buried in a pit of hot coals. I don't think I'd give it more than an hour for a meter long creature. Tastes like a cross between turkey and rabbit/hare. Light brown when cooked, but the real prize is the liver and fat - the fat is apparently fantastic for you skin and hair. The structure of the musculature is interesting - kind of lonf thin bundles of muscle along the back and along the tail. The legs are bunched up much more like turkey legs. 
  
Lots of time and energy for not that much meat and I don't think I'll be going out of my way to hunt the critters down, but as windfall protein and if, in the future, the depression causes food shortages, they will be a useful source - all you need to catch them is a laying hen as bait, it seems.

6 comments:

  1. I would have grilled it, like they grill iguana in Mexico.

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  2. Is there some reason you didn't identify the critter? I'm guessing some kind of lizard maybe?

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  3. Ah, the penny drops. I hadn't read the earlier posts. Mum's the word!

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  4. Nice one, haven't tried barni yet but it is considered a delicacy up this way as well. Local tv show Catch & Cook shows this ep fairly regularly:
    http://www.indigitube.com.au/index.php?option=com_ictv&task=view&ictvId=11
    Cheers
    Marc (drej)

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  5. Added these hints and tips to my wip survival handbook!!

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  6. What is this survival handbook of which you speak, Mags?

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