Arizona restaurant plans to serve African lion meat tacos

Welp, here's a new reason to hate Arizona. I kid! I kid because I love. But seriously, people, African lion meat tacos? (via @acitrano)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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grimc

The couple plan to order the lion meat from a farm in Perris, Calif., which is southwest of Los Angeles.

That’s odd. Last I checked, the only thing southwest of Los Angeles is the Pacific Ocean.
- Brainspore
  
  So you’re saying the meat is really from sea lions?
  - grimc
    
    Nicely done.
  - grimc
    
    And by “nicely done” I mean “well played”. Everyone knows sea lion is best enjoyed as sushi.
Freddie Freelance

Second Antinous: Lion meat is really gamy, tough, and has nearly zero fat, meaning it dries out & toughens up more with cooking. Hopefully they’ll use a wet heat method to cook the meat or it’ll end up as stringy little protein pucks.

“Lion Farms” don’t raise animals for meat, they raise’em for canned hunts and skins, and then sell the stripped carcasses to butchers. I found an interesting article from CNN Money on where the lion meat for that Lion Burger promotion came from:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/23/smallbusiness/world_cup_lion_burger/index.htm
- Deidzoeb
  
  Isn’t it just a matter of adding some fat or oil to meats that are very lean (compared to our usual)? This could be a very different situation, but I remember my dad taking deer to be processed by a butcher. You’d get a certain amount of steaks, various cuts, and turn a certain amount of it into burger (ground meat), or turn some of it into sausage depending on how much you wanted to pay. The butcher warned that his standard policy was to add some amount of beef fat to the portions of ground deer burger so that it would cook similar to the way ground beef cooks. Otherwise most people familiar with only store-bought ground beef would burn or dry out the lean deer burger.
Anonymous

I live close to a lion farm. (Here in africa, not the USA)
I suppose they have to do something with the lions after the cubs get too big for the tourists to play with.

Lion farm cubs:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyper7/4362310293/
- elbrucio
  
  How incredibly depressing. It sounds even worse than a puppy mill.
FreakCitySF

For awhile Amazon.com was offering an exotic meat combo. Included was elk, ostrich, aligator and lion. Lion tastes exactly like cow. Aligator was more fish like and ostrich was much like chicken. There are lion farms in Africa.
- VICTOR JIMENEZ
  
  Sir, I think you have being tricked, ostrich tastes like beef and have a similar texture, does not resemble chicken at all.
lyd

Should have saved this for caturday.
wiredfool

Cooking Issues did a post on a bunch of exotic meats that they ordered from Czimers Meats. Looks like Lion is between $10 and $20 a pound right now.

Cooking Issues wasn’t totally impressed by the lion, but they did like the yak and beaver.
ryuthrowsstuff

Yeah supposedly there are ‘lion farms’ out there that this meat comes from. Older zoo/circus/whathave animals (past their prime, needing to put down from age) are also reportedly a source. But I’ve heard some sketchy shit shakes out when people try to track down the actual source and confirm things. Things like “oh its from a lion farm in Iowa!”. Then it turns out there are no lion farms in Iowa, but there is a warehouse, with connections to smugglers.

So I’d be pretty careful about sourcing.
- davidasposted
  
  So what you’re saying is that they might be lion?
- SamSam
  
  Similar sketchy source story, our local Savenor’s fancy food place in Cambridge MA was always offering lion meat. When asked where it came from, they said a “farm near Chicago.”
  
  Again, no lion farm near Chicago could ever be found.
ranomatic

Why are they sending the lion meat business overseas? That’s what’s wrong with Arizona – They don’t do enough to support Americans and the American lion rancher.
- ben
  
  The couple plan to order the lion meat from a farm in Perris, Calif., which is southwest of Los Angeles.
Utenzil

i think of tacos as more of an appetizer…
not the mane course *bada dadmpoh tish^
imag

This is just a big ad for them. Which the outrage is supporting.
lyd

I’ve just spoken on the telephone to representatives at the City of Perris Animal Services http://www.cityofperris.org/residents/animal-svcs.html and the Riverside County, CA department of animal services. http://rcdas.org/home/

Neither department is aware of any lions at all in the county, much less a lion ranching operation or private hunting preserve.
notavegan

Not particularly offended: why shouldn’t we eat a meat eater?

Well, there are a few reasons — toxins get concentrated in mammals that eat higher up the food chain, though I don’t suppose that the risk of eating a lion once is much higher than eating tuna more than once a week.

When in England a few years ago I ate at a pub that had, among other features on the ‘specials’ for the day: White Rhino in Red Panda Sauce. Obviously a joke which went along with the warning that “If you leave children unattended in the pub garden, they will be fed to Tim.”

And why should the readers of Boing Boing be more concerned about dead lions than, say, a halibut?
Anonymous

Benefits of eating meat:
Late winter, high nutritive value, good calorie content, low-to-none maintenance.

Having said that, western culture has evolved to eating “high-class” meat — lazy, fatty, diet-spoiled. Ever had really gamey meat? I had some (ostrich, apparently) and it was tough and sour.

Eating meat should be a reflection of difficulty in obtaining better food.

After all, we taste just like chicken. Ask Valentine Michael Smith, not Chuck Norris.
RadioSilence

i thought, as a species, we didn’t eat other carnivores.

thinking about it though, is there a reason for that? what’s the difference between cow meat (yummy) and lion meat (eurgh)?
- SamSam
  
  Actually, we eat plenty carnivores. Fish, most fish we eat are carnivores. Lobsters too. Most of the birds we eat are omnivores, as are pigs — both pigs and chickens love meat. Also, plenty of cultures regularly or occasionally eat frogs, dogs, snakes, alligators, and other carnivorous animals.
  
  It’s less common to eat meat eaters, however, because a) toxins (heavy metals etc) generally increase as you go higher up the food chain, since most animals don’t excrete these, so a bear that eats 100 fish has the heavy metals that all the fish had in them, and b) it’s more expensive and inefficient to raise them for food, as you also have to raise the animals you feed to them.
- MadMolecule
  
  We don’t eat carnivores because it’s more expensive to raise meat-eaters than plant-eaters. If a lion has to eat 1,000 meat-meals before it’s slaughtered for its meat (I totally made up that number out of nothing), it probably makes better economic sense to just sell/eat the meat you would have fed to the lion.
  - RadioSilence
    
    thaks, MM.
    i knew there was a sensible reason.
Anonymous

Welp, ethical issues aside – I may just put down a pre-order. I’ve been to Boca before and the staff were completely friendly, the food delicious. Plus, not really sure when else I’ll ever get a chance to eat lion, of all things.
Anonymous

I’m more upset that Greasy Tony’s is gone :( They used to serve us beer in styrofoam soda cups after the bars had closed. I don’t actually recall if the pizza was any good.
arikol

I just have to wonder whether lion steak would be any good (or lion tacos for that matter). I haven’t heard of many apex predators being deeeeeelish. Except maybe americans. Taste like McDonald’s!

Just one way to find out, though!
omnomnom!
RyoGeo

Wait, now I’m conflicted. If it’s actual farms, maybe that’s ok. My knee jerk reaction to the headline was, “Oh noez, poacher’s profit center!”

However, if it is legit farms, I suppose I can’t really be all righteous as I eat turkey, chicken, beef, etc.

I just hope it’s legit, and not some jackass organization killing off wild life.
Zan

Why is this news? Another restaurant in Arizona offered Lion Burgers six months ago (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5530536/il_vinaio_restaurant_serves_up_lion.html or http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/23/smallbusiness/world_cup_lion_burger/index.htm). There was “national outrage” and bomb threats at the time. Is everyone’s memory that short?
Shart Tsung

Gross. I’m not into eating things that could have eaten a person at some point.

No alligator, crocodile, shark, bear, hippo, piranha, barracuda, wolf, leopard, snake, komodo dragon, tiger, or lion meat please.
Deidzoeb

As George W. Bush said in his 2002 State of the Union address, ‘For too long our culture has said, “If it feels good, do it.”‘ And if it’s legal, eat it.
syphax

I have an idea: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-12240558

Preview: “Live chicken thrown at KFC staff in Nuneaton”
adamnvillani

For the record, Perris is mostly east and a little bit south of Los Angeles.
Ipo

I CAN WAS CHEEZBURGER?

Nobody hating on Arizona here?
… but it’s a dry hate.
Philipshade

Just what the world needs more encouragement for Bush Meat.
Serve it up with some shark fin soup. It’s a delicacy! Never mind its an abomination.

I’ve always been impressed how much barbarity and environmental degradation can be excused with the phrase “I like the taste!”
Anonymous

Mexico City has a traditional restaurant that has all kinds of unusual dishes, including isects and yes, lion meat: http://www.fodors.com/world/mexico-and-central-america/mexico/mexico-city/review-42838.html Surely they might serve them in taco form…
Prufrock451

I’m guessing they’re buying from Anshu Exotic Meats in Perris –

http://www.exoticmeatmarket.com/index.html, 1-877-398-0141

Somebody figure out where their lion meat is coming from!
Brainspore

I guess they couldn’t get the other zoo animals to eat it.
Antinous / Moderator

People who get all juiced up about the exciting prospect of trying exotic meats are in for some disappointment. There are reasons why we mostly don’t eat some things unless we’re starving.