Can you eat badger meat

Celebrity chef Clarissa Dickson Wright stirred the British press into a flap translation: frenzy by suggesting that we cook and serve badgers for supper as an answer to a controversial badger cull in England.

Badgers carry tuberculosis and are said to pass it on to cattle —thousands of which were sick and culled last year. Either make a ham or treat it like port. Baste it properly and marinate it properly and cook it in a casserole.

Some reporters were disgusted, while Queen guitarist Brian May, who protests the culling, said :. I think we should seriously consider eating senseless people like this Clarissa whoever-she-is. I wonder if she would be best boiled or braised. People have eaten badgers for centuries and in some countries such as Russia, Croatia and China, they still do.

Meanwhile, restaurants are increasingly serving food far less appetizing than badger meat. Subscription Notification. We have noticed that there is an issue with your subscription billing details. Please update your billing details here.

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He skins and joints the badger, saves the offal and then makes a traditional casserole, adding whatever vegetables are in the house. No wine, though he may drink a glass with the meal. It's nice meat — why titillate it? European recipes for badger often ask you to lay it in running water for several days to get rid of a rank flavour. But Boyt says that's only necessary for fox. And badger, though it doesn't need to be hung, can be eaten when it's "quite green" - that's assuming the diners aren't similarly tinged.

Eating badger: a sett menu. The suggestion that culled badgers ought to be eaten is causing a bit of a stir, but is it so terrible an idea? It certainly has historical precedent, says Alex Renton.

Roadkill expert Arthur Boyt at home with a dead badger. Photograph: Alamy. Reuse this content.