Fried alligator tail. |
I’ve got a number of unusual food items on my “bucket list,”
and thanks to a little help from some friends on Saturday, I officially
scratched off one of the unusual foods that I’ve had on my list for a few years
– alligator.
I’ve had “eat alligator” on my bucket list for a while, and
a few months ago I mentioned it to my radio colleague Luther Upton after I ate
chitterlings one morning for breakfast while live on the radio. As it so
happens, one of the station’s long time advertisers, The Country Store at
Barnett’s Crossroads, Ala., sells alligator tail. One of Luther’s good friends, Mrs. Clarnette Bohannon of Goodway, heard us talking about eating
alligator, so she bought some and invited us to a big cookout at her house on
Saturday.
Having never eaten alligator, I was tempted to research it
online and was somewhat surprised to read that alligator meat is actually a generally healthy food. It’s lean, contains almost no saturated fat, contains a
high amount of vitamins and minerals and is low in cholesterol. It’s also a
good source of protein.
I watched Mrs. Clarnette as she cooked our gator tail on
Saturday, and she cooked it much like someone would cook fish or chicken. She
battered it and then dropped it into a grease-filled fryer. After a few
minutes, she’d dip each piece out with a scoop and drop it in a large, paper towel-lined pan to
cool.
To the naked eye, fried gator tail looks a lot like fried
boneless chicken fingers. That’s also sort of what they taste like. I sampled one a piping
hot piece of gator tail that was just a few minutes out the fryer, and, because
alligators are aquatic reptiles, I honestly expected it to taste like a fishy
snake. Instead, too me, it tasted like chicken, that is to say, pretty dang
good.
In fact, out of all the unusual foods and drinks that I’ve
tried since I started this bucket list series several years ago, alligator meat
is probably the best-tasting of them all. Looking back, among other things,
I’ve eaten chitterlings (Jan. 2, 2015), pig feet (Oct. 6, 2013) and octopus
(Jan. 31, 2013). I also found time to sample goat’s milk on March 29, 2013. Of
all those, I’d say alligator would be my favorite, and I wouldn’t hesitate to
eat it again.
If you’re interested in eating alligator meat yourself, I invite
you to visit The Country Store at Barnett’s Crossroads, where the proprietor,
Bud Herndon, can order you as much as you'd like. From what I understand, alligator meat is somewhat
expensive compared to other types of meat, but in my opinion, it’s well worth
it, especially if you’ve never eaten any before.
In the end, how many of you have eaten alligator? What did
you think about it? Did you like it or not? What other unusual foods would you
recommend that I try? Let us know in the comments section below.
(Special thanks for Junior and Clarnette Bohannon and
Luther Upton for inviting me to their cookout on Saturday and for helping me
officially scratch this unusual food item off of my bucket list. I do
appreciate it.)
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