Boiling battle over bushmeat

 Add your view

 

In Iceland people eat rotting shark meat. In the Philippines they eat dead chick embryos straight from the egg. In Korea they eat dogs that are beaten to death to tenderise them.

Throughout Africa people hunt and kill whatever doesn't kill them first, then prepare it for cooking in a variety of ways. It's known as bushmeat, and over here it's a highly prized delicacy.

Except that it's illegal. In February, the UK Bushmeat Campaign was launched in Westminster. It aims to put an end to the estimated 1,000 tonnes of unlawful meat brought into Britain every year. (One recent spot-check on a flight from Africa found 350 kilos of illegal food.)

Since the conviction of Mobolaji Osakuade in May 2001 (Osakuade was a butcher on Ridley Road market in Dalston who, rather unwisely, attempted to sell four pieces of smoked Tantalus monkey and an anteater to an undercover investigator), the pressure has been on to enforce the law, with the result that bushmeat has been taken off menus all over town. Or has it?

Deciding just where 'bushmeat' stops and where 'game' starts is a tricky business. Peter Gottgens, chef/proprietor of the Springbok Caf? in West London, has grilled his fair share of springbok, warthog, impala and even zebra, but restricts himself to exotic meats such as ostrich and crocodile which are properly killed, carefully butchered, chilled or frozen and then cleared through Customs by meat inspectors.

Bushmeat, on the other hand, is killed, rough-smoked and often hidden in a suitcase and smuggled into London by a tourist. Being illegal, it doesn't have to comply with hygiene regulations. If it's impounded, well, it's cheap enough to be written off. If not, then everyone involved makes a handsome profit. Except Britain runs the risk of being exposed to a plethora of epidemics from ebola, TB and foot and mouth to yellow fever. Which leads to the question that fascinates every inquisitive foodie: why is it so highly sought after?

Gottgens confesses that, on a recent food trip for South African television, he tasted Vervet monkey, and that it was hardly a gastronomic highlight, particularly as it had been marinated in the contents of the animal's gall bladder before cooking. Gottgens also has the low-down on elephant, hippo and giraffe ('don't bother'); snake ('like lousy chicken') and roast porcupine ('not worth the hassle').

He concedes, however, that the best eating of all is the giant cane rat, a formidable rodent the size and shape of a Staffordshire bull terrier. 'It's rich, sweet meat and a dark, dark red - a bit like fine-grained beef fillet,' he says.

Not that he'd touch it here, though the restaurateur does get the occasional mysterious phone call from people with stuff to sell. One recent caller wouldn't say what meat he had or what it would cost, but suggested a cash deal after dark on a street corner - the kind of offer that Gottgens found easy to refuse.

When the undercover man snared Osakuade, he did so by posing as a West African prince claiming he needed the monkey for a ritual he was holding in honour of his grandfather. Monkeys are the caviar of the bushmeat trade and priced accordingly. Like caviar they come from an unsustainable source (if the current trade in bushmeat continues, both chimpanzee and gorilla could be extinct within 20 years), so rarity is part of the appeal.

However, the vast majority of the bushmeat trade into this country involves the kind of meat that is a mainstay of traditional African home cooking - the larger rodents, antelopes and anteaters.

To an African restaurant, serving this sort of bushmeat brings the same sort of cachet as 'specially selected Aberdeen Angus' bestows on a steakhouse. The problem facing anyone curious to taste these delicacies is that unless you are known by, or preferably related to, the management, you won't get served. In the current climate, wandering down Dalston's Ridley Road asking all and sundry where you can buy a smoked monkey is not a wise move.

But in the spirit of investigative hackdom, I'm willing to give it a go. My search for a bushmeat dinner starts where so many good dinners start - in a bar. A minor tidal wave of beer is enough to guide a conversation with some Nigerian chums around to the topic of bushmeat and to a heated discussion on the relative merits of London's various West African restaurants. As they all run on West African time (altogether more elastic than GMT), the smart approach is to ring in your food order an hour or so before you arrive so that the kitchen can get a head start.

When I enquire about monkey, my drinking companions point out indignantly that there is no tradition of eating monkeys in Nigeria, except among primitive tribes deep in the forest and even then only when they're desperate. The meat that makes them all go misty eyed is called 'grass cutter'. This animal is a large rodent (described rather graphically as 'a beaver that can't swim'). Enthusiasts say it has a unique flavour. 'Without genuine grass cutter, dishes don't taste right. It's as if you made a spag bol with corned beef. It may taste OK, but?'

So someone whips out a mobile phone, puts a call through to a favourite restaurant and places our order. We're to have some pepper soup, giant African land snail, a couple of orders of pounded yam, efo-egusi (a stew made with spinach and melon seeds) and two portions of bushmeat - grass-cutter stew. After a few more beers, we set off for dinner.

When we arrive at the restaurant, the scene reminds me of a Western, when the good guy walks into the saloon and everything goes quiet. After sizing us up, the management announces that while they had received the telephoned order and did have our table ready, someone must have made a mistake. They don't serve bushmeat.

'Surely,' the boss says, 'you realise that such dishes are against the law?' while glowering at my guide. The rest of the order is fine, just no grass cutter. It may well still be listed on the menu, but no, they don't serve it. Bushmeat is very definitely off.

Because the giant African land snails we ordered are shipped alive, they don't contravene the import regulations. The huge molluscs (when unravelled, they're nearly 30cm long) are cut into chunky rubbery wedges and fried before being dished up in a thick and rich pepper sauce. Believe me, they taste very good. Chewy, and with a fierce chilli fire, but good.

After a decent, if bushmeatless, meal, the tension has eased enough for me to talk to the chef who tells me they 'used to get grass cutter from the market'. The meat was already smoked and jointed, and came frozen. An average pack would set them back about £55, which means that a decent portion would retail for about £10.

The irony is that my bowl of 'assorted meat pepper soup' was so magnificently hot, fruity, deep and murky, hiding as it did oxtail on the bone, goat, tripe and various dangerous-looking unidentifiable bits and pieces, that were you to tell someone it was a rare bushmeat stew, it's unlikely they would call your bluff. If grass cutter tastes better than this, I can see what the fuss is about. Almost.

 

What's on today   What's on tomorrow

Receive our newsletter