Fringe Foods: Indigenous provisions at the Dane County Farmers' Market

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Sure, you might buy your protein in the form of brown eggs, or cuts of beef, or even whole turkeys. But are you one of those people who walks inconsiderately past bison or deer? Maybe you raise a quizzical eyebrow at emu and ostrich? You reach your hand out toward the sample jar, toothpick quavering, only to withdraw it demurely. Of course, many of you don't think twice. You've been baptized, indoctrinated (and there are more and more discovering these meats every year). But of my party of three at the Farmers' Market on opening weekend, one bought an unusual meat, one tentatively took a bite of half a sample, and the other stood on the far side of the walk. I think that's probably a reliable demographic breakdown.

My first purchase was probably the least unusual. One in ten Wisconsinites purchased a deer hunting license in 2006, and venison is so plentiful that it is donated to community food pantries throughout the state. As far as that hunting goes, it's been done by Native Americans for thousands of years, and by European settlers for hundreds. While chronic wasting disease has made some folks wary of venison, it's not hurting for proponents in the culinary community.

I tried two kinds of ready-to-eat venison products from Gooch Farms: the hot snack "stix" and the spicy flavored jerky. The difference, I was told, was that the jerky was seasoned with cayenne pepper, while the snack stick included jalapeños, as well as cheese to mitigate the increased heat. Of the two, the jerky was the lesser; a spongy texture (which might have been exacerbated by the humidity) was not aided in any way by seasoning insufficient to cover up the gaminess of venison. The snack stick was pretty tasty, with a good snap and just the right amount of cheese and heat.

Counter-clockwise I went, until I arrived at come a long way to be served up at the Farmers' Market in Madison. Emus are native to Australia, and served as an ersatz livestock for indigenous Australians dating back tens of thousands of years. Compared to the rest of the red game meats, plus turkey and beef, emu meat has a pretty killer protein to fat ratio, making it one of the healthiest land-based protein sources in the human diet (other than, y'know, grubs and scorpions and whatnot).

Valley View sells emu under the name "Craig's Meats," and I snapped up some emu sticks as soon as I was within arm's reach. I've had these before (procured at both previous Farmers' Markets and at Artamos), and they're fantastic. These kinds of birds seem have a tendency to become de-texturalized and somewhat gritty when processed this way, but Craig's emu sticks are better than most, and so well-seasoned that I never pass them up.

Back on this side of the globe, North America's most iconic "livestock" has always been bison. The American bison, whose relation to the more aptly-named buffaloes of Africa and Asia is distant to say the least, is fattier than emu but still has lower fat and cholesterol than beef. All sorts of gastropubs (and even chain "pubs") serve bison burgers now, and if I don't finish this sentence soon, the last vestige of fringe value will have completely worn off of this most quintessential of American red meat.

That being said, I suppose the fringe value with almost any food is in what you do with it. The bison stick I picked up was just fine, although not as good as either the emu or the venison snack stick -- pretty standard landjäger. The real winner from Cherokee Bison Farms was the bison summer sausage with cranberries. The meat was peppery and well-ground, and the cranberries smoothed out all the jagged edges that can sometimes plague the flavor profile of summer sausage.

The last stop in my meat loop led me to the other big bird, ostrich. The jury's still out as to how closely ostrich (an African bird) are related to emus, but there are obvious, if tangential, connections. Long-necked, flightless, and ancient, both ostrich and emus have been hunted by their human neighbors for millennia, and have the nasty disposition to prove it. One international ostrich goods retailer tells me that the bird require the least amount of feed to achieve a baseline weight gain of any land animal raised by humans, which makes it a good investment for farming.

Unfortunately, jerkifyed ostrich turned out to be my least favorite overall. The smoked ostrich stick was just okay, with a little smoky flavor but little else to endear it to me. The kippered steak, on the other hand, had both an unpleasant taste and texture; as with the venison jerky, I felt no compunction to finish it.