Murder Tastes Good

In college every year our dorm threw a huge BBQ the Saturday before Halloween that was dubbed Halloweiner. We ordered all sorts of exotic meat, from ostrich to shark to alligator, and had a lot of fun throwing things on the grill and tasting new things. We'd advertise and raise funds with t-shirts and beer mugs using the tagline "Meat is murder. Murder tastes good."

Last year, with everyone in town for the Rally to Restore Sanity, we had a perfect excuse to start the tradition back up. This year we have a whole house to accommodate a bunch of guests, so we had to throw it again. And despite the snow it was a huge success!

We put a tarp up to protect the grills from the snow.

My best friend made some delicious appetizers in the form of pumpkin seeds, guacamole, and corn dogs while we waited for the local guests to arrive. It was all delicious

vegetarian appetizers

These appetizers had all the important food groups: meat, cheese, bread, and black sesame seeds

She also decided to roast the rabbit. In past years we've grilled the rabbit, which results in some fairly uneven cooking. The outside gets cooked while the inside stays raw, so we always end up picking at the outer bits while we wait for the inside to finish cooking. It's not the greatest situation. But this year, the rabbit turned out great.

Raw bunny, with a belly full of stuffing

Bunny's all tied up and ready to roast. 

In the above picture you can see the bunny's guts. We didn't eat them, but I believe we identified them as the heart, kidneys, and liver.

Basting the bunny

Delicious roasted rabbit

Stuffing

Bunny's aren't very big, so there wasn't a whole lot of stuffing. But it was delicious.

Cooked bunny

Most of the bunny meat is on the legs. It didn't last very long.

We cooked the rest of the meat on the grill under the tarps. We started with a whole bunch of burgers. We had buffalo burgers

Buffalo burgers

Wild boar burgers

Wild boar

Venison burgers

Venison burgers

And kangaroo burgers!

Kangaroo burgers!

We threw them all on the grill at the same time, but Boyfriend was able to keep them separate and remember which was which

Grilling the burgers

They were all delicious. In my opinion the kangaroo was the best. It was surprisingly tender with just a hint of a gamey aftertaste. The venison was the chewiest and ultimately my least favorite. The buffalo was pretty standard (but still delicious). And I decided that the boar burgers tasted like "Winter is coming". That was partially because it was snowing and partially because one of our friends was in the middle of A Game of Thrones. He was drinking any time anyone said "Winter is coming".

Mmmmm, venison

After the burgers came some wild boar loin and kangaroo loin

Boar (left) and kangaroo (right)

The boar had a distinct pork taste; it was super pig! And, again, the kangaroo was surprisingly yummy. That's fortunate, since we bought a bunch of kangaroo and still have two loins in the fridge. So much kangaroo.

We chopped the loins up into easy-to-share bite-sized pieces.

Super pig!

Delicious kangaroo

Next we moved on to some slightly more exotic meat: elk and alligator. Well, elk is a little less exotic, at least for someone with relatives who hunt it. But it's certainly not an everyday thing, which is what this party is all about!

Elk medallions (left) and alligator (right)

I can't remember eating the elk, so I don't know how it came out. The alligator was better than I was expecting. It's usually like a chewy fish, but this was closer to chicken in both taste and texture. Not to say it tasted just like chicken, because that's a cliche. But it was certainly tastier than I had expected.

Finally we cooked a rattlesnake

Rattlesnake!

This was probably the biggest letdown of the evening. We were full of anticipation because none of us had ever eaten snake before. But it turns out snakes are almost entirely skin and bones. The meat needed to be sucked out from the middle, and it didn't taste very good. Oh well, live and learn.

We also cooked some normal meat for the less adventurous guests. And for the moments when you just needed something familiar. We had kielbasa, sausage, and an entire chicken.

Sausages and kielbasa

Chicken

All in all, it was probably the most successful Halloweiner ever. Everyone got to try a bit of everything. We discovered that venison should not be made into burgers, kangaroo is delicious no matter how you slice it, rabbit is better roasted than grilled, and snake isn't worth the effort.

I can't wait for next year!