A fine dinner--Jungle Style (except, probably not really, but it sounds good)

PREFACE:

You probably didn't think a post would need a preface (maybe I've been reading too much Dickens of late). Well this one gets one, necessary or not. 

All that to say--The following events happened the the last eve of October, and I haven't put them up because I need to get on particular fabulous picture from Joanna, but I decided to just post this now, anyway, and I'll add said photo later--believe me, it's one you won't want to miss folks. 

31 October 2008

 

Today I saw a dead buffalo. Actually, I just saw parts of him. At about 11:30 I heard someone calling my name. I thought maybe it was Karen so I went to check the hall between our houses, but no one was there. The calling continued and then I had a genius idea: maybe someone is at the front door!

 

Sure enough, Joanna was outside. I was a bit confused since even though we had planned on me coming over for lunch it was still 30 minutes till noon, but she quickly explained that there was a buffalo being cut up by the hospital and sold for meat. I grabbed my camera and we rushed down to the hospital, with Joanna’s already bought chunk of meet in a black bag at my feet. This was terribly exciting!

 

We got down there and sure enough, there was a small crowd of people around a few men with Machetes cutting up pieces of meat and weighing them on a little scale. 

In the pickup truck behind them, the huge heard of the buffalo lay. I made sure it was ok to take a picture and got my camera out. As I was about to snap a picture, a man standing off to the side with a taxi, started shaking his finger at me. I pointed him out to Joanna and he came over and started talking rapidly in French (actually, it may not have been rapid, it all sounds rapid to me, unless every syllable is said as an individual word, but then I get confused because I don’t recognize the words, which are actually syllables) Anyway, I did catch the word “ferme” (closed) and that he was unhappy. He flashed a little card at us. And I quickly figured out what Joanna confirmed a few seconds later: Apparently it is not bull killing season, and these people should not  have killed the buffalo because it’s season is over (here is where I think “ferme” came in) and they shouldn’t be cutting this buffalo up and selling it there. The man was apparently a ranger, or worked with the park rangers or something. I’m not sure why this meant I couldn’t take a picture, since shooting a picture is entirely different from shooting a picture. And I probably could have, but I really didn’t want to step on any toes, and soon after this the ranger/taxi driver and the men cutting meat started yelling at each other. Now I’ve been here long enough to know that yelling Gabonese does not always equal angry Gabonese. But when one is accusing another of illegal business and the accused is standing there holding a machete, I know enough about human nature to decide not to push anything. (OK, so I wasn’t really fearing for anyone’s life, but still, you don’t really want caught up in the middle of angry people anywhere) So since Joanna had pictures and the meat was all sold, we hopped back in the car and slowly drove past the truck so I could see the buffalo’s head.

 

Then we headed back up. I ate lunch with the Thelanders and we discussed the buffalo meat in the fridge. Joanna had offered me the opportunity to cut up the pieces before she gave the job to Ernestine (her house help). I was happy to give it a whack (pun fully intended—sorry!). So we looked through some cookbooks, got Ernestine’s opinion on what part of the bull we were dealing with (Rump/Thigh—the hip socket gave that away). After lunch, I went to. 

Joanna was a little grossed out by the whole ordeal. So I had to contain my excitement and not discuss all the nitty-gritty details about the bones and marrow and tendons (or ligaments...I always get them mixed up, and I don’t know if it was attached bone to bone or bone to ligament anyway, because I only had one end...). There was a really neat blood vessel or something too. It was squishy, and quite large. While I sawed off the bones and tried to get little chunks of meat apart, Joanna and the kids prepared mushrooms and bullion and all kinds of delicious smelling things to make some kind of mushroom beef.

 

Luke and Sarah love to cook, and here they are quite absorbed in watching the meat brown.

It was tough stuff to cut. That bull had some strong muscles. It reminded me off cutting up cow eyes in dad’s office. Mostly the smell was similar, but I was equally shocked both times at how difficult it was to cut through the tissues. Of course, it makes since. I mean, the animal can’t have it’s muscle and fat and whatever else was there just falling all apart inside his body, so why would it get all weak and easy to cut just because it was no longer protected by skin?  Still for an idea of how difficult this was, I was using Cutco (I’m pretty sure anyway) knives, and it was still hard work to get through that stuff.

 

Anyway, it was quite a bit of fun. I didn’t even cut off a finger! I felt ingenious at one point though. The last piece of meat was wrapped around a huge tendon/ligament. I wanted to get it off that because it wasn’t going to be any good to eat. But the tendon/ligament was too slippery to hold onto, so I couldn’t get a good grip anywhere to cut both pieces of meat off the thick white strip. Then I thought of a thumb whole! So I spent the next 30 seconds boring out a hole in the tendon/ligament that I could slip my thumb into. I had no worries of the hole splitting because I could barely get the knife through it. It worked like a dream! I could stick my thumb through the hole, giving me a great grip and a good chance to filet the meat off the tough white strip.

 

So no more flower smelling for this Ferdinand the bull, but I sure am looking forward to the tasty meal we’re about to eat!

 

***later***

 

So it was really tasty!

 And I wrote this whole post calling it a bull and thinking it was the strangest cow I had ever seen. But then, after getting to the Thelander’s for dinner, everyone was then calling it a buffalo. This makes much more since, and it also makes my Ferdinand comment less clever. But, such is life.

 

Anyway, it was yummy, I get some of the leftovers too. Hurray!