While Bactrian camels (two humps) are eaten at times, the prferred eating camel is the Dromedary (one hump). They are slaughtered between 4 and 10 years old, but as the camel ages, its meat becomes tougher and less flavorful.
Camel is eaten in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Kazakhstan, and particularly in Somalia and Djibouti
where it is a staple of the cuisine. In ancient Persia, camels were often
spit roasted whole. Camel is also sometimes eaten in Australia, and exported
from there, mostly to the Near East, but also to the U.S. and
Europe. Australian camels are feral, not farmed, so the flavor is different.
Photo by Jjron distributed under license Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike v3.0 Unported.
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Camel meatis a red meat that tastes similar to Beef, but is somewhat coarser in texture. It is also a little sweeter, due to high glycogen content, similar to Horse meat. Meat from older camels can be very tough and take long cooking to be suitable for the table. The hump contains large amounts of white fat, which is often used to preserve meats, camel and other. Photo by Olivier Colas distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike v4.0 International.Camel Milkis very important for some peoples, and key to the survival of nomads in desert regions. It is, however, difficult to make butter from camel milk, but some butter is made. It is difficult to get camel milk to coagulate into curds to make cheese, but experiments have been done and some is now produced commercially in Mauritania.Buying:Camel Meat, Milk, and Hump Fat are available from North American producers. Look for them on-line. These products are also available in Australia.
CookingCamel meat is used in dishes from African cuisines. It is commonly included with vegetables in stews or in rice dishes, such as the Biryani in the photo. It is generally wet cooked due to toughness, and how long depends on age. Photo by Miansari66 contributed to the Public Domain.. |