Road Kill Chef...any one?

[autumnleaf]

Wouldn't touch it unless I was literally desperately starving and had no choice. It would need to be so fresh that the animal was only stunned and therefore was killed by being bled properly. When meat hasn't been bled properly then as far as I am concerned it is unclean because after all it is in the blood that all potential food poisoning comes from.

[QuakerBear]

My husbands boss does a roadkill BBQ everysummer. We missed the last one but are looking forward to this years, I'll let you know what it's like when we have it. Here are some of the tips people have told us:

Stews are actually better then BBQs as you often have small animals, think rabbit stew and rabbit soup and you've got the idea in terms of how large most of your meat pieces are going to be. You will find little rib cages floating to the top of your stew and you will often have to pick bones.

Fox apparantly doesn't taste good and when cooking it the fat turns green so it looks unappetising. It's also quite fatty so you have to skim the fat off. All in all fox is best avoided.

Dear is a rare and wonderful treat.

[possum]

When meat hasn't been bled properly then as far as I am concerned it is unclean because after all it is in the blood that all potential food poisoning comes from.

Sorry, but that is the kiwi in you speaking and putting it politely, erm rubbish.
Kiwis have a thing about not eating offal, mainly because for a long time meat has been able to be be bought cheaply, so why bother eating offal, or black pudding. But blood is not the source of all potential food poisoning, quite the reverse. Food poisoning it usually brought about by the incorrect storage of meat, with or without the blood.
Lets face it the most severe form of food poisoning (botulism) is caused by vegetables.

[Midori]

I have a problem with eating roadkill.

If you understand the anatomy of the animal, then OK, but if you don't have the knowledge to know if the guts are perforated and the meat consequently contaminated by faecal matter, be careful.

Cheers, Midori

[Clara]

In my experience the anatomy is pretty clear and intestines once perforated (usually when the dog has had them out of whatever you´re putting the offal in ) are quite distinct in their aroma

Besides, if you´re thoroughly cleaning and cooking the meat through there shouldn´t be a problem.

[magenta flame]

Aboriginals are the only ones in this country who are allowed to eat roadkill. It's illegal for everyone else. This is because they seem to know how to prepare a predomantly worm filled animal or carcus. I find that farmers in our area will stop at the side of the road and hack off the hind legs of a Kangaroo for dog meat though.

[mrsflibble]

I've eaten road kill rabbit and dog kill pigeod, loved the rabbit but I'm not keen on game so the pigeoin was a bit much for me.


i also can not spell pigoen...I'm a fast typer but I'm not accurate.

[Womblies]

Hi all,

We've eaten roadkill many's a time. Pheasants, rabbits and deer when we lived in Scotland. The pheasants and rabbits we hit (accidentally) with the car. The deer were hit by others in front or coming the other way and just left by th side of the road, these wre promptly hoisted into the boot of the car. Luckily Mr Womblie is able to butcher them.

A funny story re one such butchering...
I brought home a deer roadkill from when my step-daughter and I were visiting the remote 'Lost Gallery' www.lostgallery.co.uk near Bellabeg, Aberdeenshire. Mr Womblie was in the old piggery building at the side of the house butchering it, when a rather irate lady ( a 'toonser' ie. a derogatory term in Scotland for one who resides in a town and who knows nothing or looks down on country folk!!))knocked on my door to complain that she had had to slow down to avoid my ducks that were on the road. I was making my point that 1. she shouldn't have been going fast enough to have had to jam on her brakes anyway...especially as we lived on a dogleg bend in the road,next to a sign to go slow for horses, and she had a carfull of kids and 2. this was afterall the countryside and wildlife and livestock are apt to wander on roads! all this was going at the front door while Peter was butchering the deer round the corner!!! I can't imagine what she would have said if she'd seen him!!

Another deer we ate was killed when we were walking our dogs in a small patch of woodland in Aberdeen, Scotland when we were staying there a while after we'd moved ino the campervan. We saw a deer up ahead before it aw us, and kept the dogs back in order to give it time to run away. Unfortunately it decided to run the wrong way into security fencing round an electricity sub-station. It jumped at the fence with such a force that it broke it's neck... we couldn't believe it... especially as we'd held the dogs back from chasing it!! Anyway...we couldn't let it go to waste...and luckily my parents have a big freezer and we had fillet of venison with thyme and blueberry sauce for tea, recipe from Claire MacPherson-Grant Russell's 'I Love Food' a cookery book by the Lady Laird of Ballindalloch castle!! and very good it is too and one of the books I took on my travels in the campervan, along with HFW River cottage cook book and Rick Stein's 'Fruits of the Sea' to give recipes for the foraged food on our travels. our blog www.wombleworld.blogspot.com has some info and pictures of meals cooked with foraged food, mostly 'shrooms. cant wait for 'shroom time here in france

[judyofthewoods]

I have a problem with eating roadkill.

If you understand the anatomy of the animal, then OK, but if you don't have the knowledge to know if the guts are perforated and the meat consequently contaminated by faecal matter, be careful.

Cheers, Midori

I have eaten road kill, but only if the animal had an obvious head injury. If it is not clear, I leave it to the crows, as any internal injury could easily rupture the intestine or bladder, both contaminating the meat. But even if the fatal injury was to the head, I still inspect the inside just to make sure there was no secondary internal injury not visible on the outside. Also, I only pick up animals still warm and limp, therefore road kill is a very rare item on the menu (coupled with a hermit life style). Rabbit (probably the most widely available road kill) gut content is very smelly (my cats have killed the odd one and spread the guts over the floor), so if after carefully removing the viscera, and the cavity is pongy, then the gut may have been ruptured. I also cook the meat well, and only take healthy looking animals from an environment where they are likely to be uncontaminated by pollutants either - no main roads, no land with intensive arable farming.

[wiggy]

Ive eaten roadkill. Im proberly the worst person for picking up dead things at the side of the road.
Near got myself killed a few times doing it as well, theres nothing wrong with it - its just like picking a apple of a tree lol

[Rachel Squires]

I have to say that I haven't eaten road kill because I've only ever seen small animals actually killed and they tend to be a bit mushy afterwards. I was always taught that roadkill could be dodgy unless you saw it killed cos diseased animals wander into the road accidentally and are killed that way and so could be bad to eat. Infact I've dispatched rabbits at the roadside that are obviously suffering and dying of myximitosis (excuse spelling).

However, I'm not sqeamish about the idea of fresh road kill and keep bin liners or a sheet in the car just in case I'm ever around to see a deer killed... Well you never know....

Rach.

[ChickenChaser]

I've just screeched to a halt and ran back down one of our local roads to pick up a pheasant - still warm, a bit bashed, but now plucked, gutted and sitting in the fridge for a few days.

Can't wait - I've done this before with pheasant and bunny and passed a deer the other day that just wouldn't have fitted in the car (shame). To all those who are squeamish, I can understand why, but it was so satisfying knowing that this animal has not died in vain. It could be argued that the crows etc. have been denied a meal, but I ish, therefore I am.

It's clean, smells like grass and good loam and is in better condition than any commercial broiler you can 'drive thru' KFC for......

Pheasant pie and game stock coming up.................

[Mum_Greenwood]

I have seen how Aborigines cook animals. With Echidna's they just chuck them on a fire, that is mostly hot coals. It's the same with all animals, actually. They go on the fire (hot coals) fur and all. Then they just cut it open and eat it.

In Central Australia, some aboriginal women went "out bush", with their kids and killed an echidna and then just threw it on the fire. Not draining blood or anything.

I have seen goanna's cooked this way too. Wigety Grubs, you eat raw.

I have 2 dogs, and have often thought about getting road kill in the morning (at this time of the year it's frosty over night) and roasting it for the dogs.

All this reminds of a scene from (one of my 15yo's fav movies) the Beverley Hillbillies when the grandmother, argues with a posh lady about a squirrel they ran over lol.

A week ago, coming home from the city at midnight, I saw a feral deer crossing the road, not far from my house. (I live in suburbia- but rural suburbia near farms and rainforest). Deer are feral here because some people got sucked into the hype of the 90's that said farming deers would bring them good money. What did they do when they went broke? They released them into the nearby forest! D'ah. Like we don't have enough feral animals here already doing damage?!

I had heard, that we had feral deer (some properties have signs up warning that they shot deer), now I have actually seen one.

I suppose they will become loved, by some groups, like the wild horses and camels, that were introduced.

Me

[ChickenChaser]

Not sure about goanna - I had croc once and it was all a bit chickeny fishy...

The pheasant was lovely, for anyone considering roadkill dining - it was warm still when I picked it up, so fresh (it was a rainy day, so can't say the sun had warmed it up, plus it smelled so fresh) and I plucked it and did the necessary bits on the same day, fridged it, then we roasted it 3 days later wrapped in bacon.

I pulled the meat off, chopped up the bacon and used the onion and herbs I'd cooked it with - de-glazed the roasting tin with red wine and we had a bloody good pie, with leftovers and bones for stock.

It was a gourmet feast and didn't feel at all strange. I will definately be doing it again

[Hedgehogpie]

At least you didn't have to take out loads of buckshot from it. I haven't had pheasant since I was a kid (and then my mum didn't really know what to do with it, bless her). One thing I've often wondered though, is it better hung for a while or eaten fresh?