Leaving, on a jet plane...

Meat Weeks 31, 32, 33 & 34. Thursday 30th July - Wednesday 26th August.

It has been a period of change and upheaval - our upstairs neighbours, from whom we pilfered our internet (albeit through an agreement involving reciprocal use of my washing machine), moved out, leaving me without a connection and home, and thus reducing the (already infrequent) frequency of my updates. However, tomorrow, I fly to Croatia, so I figured I better make an extra special effort to let everyone know what is going on before I do. Also, in the, admittedly unlikely, event of my being the victim of human trafficking, I wouldn't anyone to think that I'd faltered in my task up till this point.

Of course, I almost have on numerous occasions, and, following my monkfish triumph, I almost did. Annoyingly, we had visited BugWorld in the hope of picking up a tarantula, only to find that they didn't currently have any in stock, and, although I did manage to eat a fresh, as opposed to dried, queen ant (crunchy, with a slightly buttery and bacon-y flavour, and not too bad, all in all. The look on the face of the girl selling them was priceless however - I don't think she'd seen anyone eat one without looking disgusted, and certainly not mulling over the flavour), that meant that I was once again looking for another meat. However, this being Sunday, I still had a few days left. Easy, right? Well, no, because I'm still me, and, as has happened all too often, I left my meat to the last minute, and ended up falling back on yet another of my reserves - my final pate. This time it was pheasant, and, to be honest, it really wasn't very nice at all. It's not something I'll be seeking out in the future at all, but it ticked off a box, and is a bird that I can get hold of easily enough in the future, so I didn't worry about it too much.

I had taken the pate to Birmingham and my friend Richard's flat, as, on Thursday, we were to attend the Great British Beer Festival in fair London town. With a wide array of ales on offer, there were, of course, a wide range of food options for the hungry drinker, including, or at least so I hoped, some more animals for me to add to my list. Having a quick wander round allayed any fears that I may have had that this week would be another last minute affair as I quickly located a stall from which I could purchase whelks.

Whelks look like snails, but are all meat where the shell on a snail is. They are essentially just muscle, and move quite disconcertingly. However, despite my misgivings, I was quite prepared to go through with the eating, and so got on with it, more to get it out of the way than anything else.

To be honest, my initial idea was right - they were not particularly nice at all. They had the texture of squid, but took much longer to get through, mainly because they were just a ball of chewy, as opposed to rings. On top of this, they had a very salty flavour, which ensured I could eat no more than 3 or 4 before I had to give up. I think I'll file whelks alongside cockles in the 'seafood I don't think I'll be bothering with again' folder.

Given that my meat week had ended on Thursday, I had almost two weeks to prepare for my next animal. Plenty of time, surely, to come up with something interesting and exciting? Well, that's not quite how it worked out, and, of course, resulted in my once again scrabbling for something new to eat as my week came to an end. As the day drew on, I had found nothing, and was starting to panic - I honestly couldn't think of a way out, and had no way of easily getting hold of something new. Houston, we could have a problem.

I then came up with an interesting solution, which involved some gerrymandering on my part. Back in Week 14, I had eaten smoked eel. I was unsure where the eel should be categorised for my purposes, and had sought the advice of Captain Meat, Ben, who had advised that I could decide whether to file it under 'scaled fish', or 'other.' At the time, I had decided upon scaled fish, as I thought the 'other' category would lead to a more interesting future animal than having a spare 'scaled fish' would have. However, at this point, interesting wasn't so important to me as not failing, and so I decided that it was time to move eel to 'other,' and grab myself another fish. One trip to the supermarket later, and I had a tin of tuna in my possession, which I proceeded to eat later that night. After the first mouthful, it struck me how strange this challenge was, that we were halfway through the month of August, and I had yet to eat tuna, which is something I used to just have in the cupboard and use as an easy lunch. Now, I'm going to have to get used to the taste again - it really is quite strong. And tuna really makes your mouth dry.

On second thoughts, maybe I should put that down as 'other' - hopefully there was some dolphin in there.

After the tuna debacle, I was hopeful that I could be better prepared the next week. However, I still found myself on Wednesday searching for something to have. I really am awfully organised. Luckily, I found myself a really good butcher who came up trumps, with both a partridge and a pheasant (I do like to actually eat the meat after I've had the processed version). I was really surprised at just how small a partridge is, and especially how small pheasants are - they're all feathers really.

Although I overcooked the birds (they really don't need to be in the oven anywhere near as long as chickens) which made the meat a little dry, it was still very tasty. Partridge is unlike any other bird I've had, and has a much meatier taste than any other poultry I've eaten - it was actually quite close to rabbit. Pheasant was also quite pleasant - much better than its pate version - and is a good alternative to chicken. Of the two, I think I preferred partridge, but they are really too small to be of any use to anyone - more an accompaniment to dinner that being dinner itself. Still, a couple as part of a buffet or something could be nice.

So, onto my next few weeks, and we approach the final third of the year. As I mentioned, I head to Croatia tomorrow, which is worrying me, as I don't know what I'll be able to get there. I do know that it's a very seafood heavy cuisine, so I've saved a shark and a flatfish to have there. On top of that, we're contemplating a trip to Ljubljana, and I've read that edible dormouse is a delicacy in Slovenia, so hopefully I'll be able to grab one of them. To help me out, I have some snails to eat before we go, courtesy of a good friend of mine, which will reduce the number of meat weeks I have to do over there. Fingers crossed.

However, I do have some worries about the future, mainly due to land crustaceans - they're going to prove awfully difficult to do, and I might have to call for a judges ruling on those. We shall see.

Anyway, until I return...

Stay Meaty!

As usual, for those keeping score, here's the updated table, up to and including, weeks 34 (completed categories in bold):

Herbivore Mammals
Bovine - Cow, Week 2; Buffalo, Week 19.
Ovine - Sheep, Week 5; Goat, Week 27.
Marsupia - Kangaroo, Week 21.
Rodentia - Rabbit, Week 13.

Omnivore Mammals
Porcine - Pig, Week 1.
Rodentia (a different one to the herbivore one)

Carnivore Mammals
Canine

Arthropods
Insecta
- Winged - Crickets, Week 12.
- Unwinged – Mealworms, Week 10 (Mealworm Beetle Larva); Ants, Week 15.
Arachnid - Scorpion, Week 20.
Crustatia
- Land
- Sea - Prawns, Week 17; Crab, Week 23.

Reptilia
Crocodile, Week 26.

Amphibians
Frog, Week 25.

Fish
Scaled fish - Salmon, Week 6; Tuna, Week 33.
Flat fish - Monkfish, Week 30.
Shark - Dogfish, Week 28.

Mollusca
Bivalvia – Mussels, Week 11; Cockles, Week 29.
Cephalopoda - Octopus, Week 8; Squid, Week 24.
Gastropoda - Whelks, Week 32

Plus 10 different types of Bird - Turkey, Week 3; Chicken, Week 4; Ostrich, Week 7; Wood Pigeon, Week 16; Duck, Week 18; Goose, Week 22; Pheasant, Week 31; Partridge, Week 34.
Plus 2 Animals from classifications NOT on the list – Deer (Cervine), Week 9; Eel, Week 14.