I would have to say it orginally had something to do with why certain animals were domesticated and others weren’t. The four you mention as meat sources are definitely the most widely raised, but I think goats and sheep would be more common meat sources than the other animals you listed in your second group. Animals like moose, deer, elk, camel, swan and heron haven’t ever been successfully domesticated. Well, maybe swans have, but the others no. If you are interested in a more detailed discussion about what I just stated you should check out Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.
In certain restaurants items like rabbit and venision are not at all unusual. Even elk steaks are on several menus I’ve seen. The fact that it isn’t more common may have something to do with demand and how most people view certain animals as cute and cuddly.
Goose and duck are also domesticated and can be found in some markets.
Quail and pheasant are also commonly found on restaurant menus and are often “farm-raised” but the birds are not truly domesticated.
You can get ostrich jerky and other ostrich meat pretty easily in Southern Arizona markets. If you take the 8 into Arizona from California, you’ll see a big ol’ ostrich ranch around Casa Grande where the 8 turns into the 10.
Did this one make it onto the wrong list by mistake? or is it really the case that lamb is not commonly sold in your part of the world?
In any supermarket (in my part of the world, which is the UK), I can be assured of a wide choice of meat products in the beef, pork, lamb, chicken, turkey range, I can be fairly confident that there will be a couple of different duck products, guinea fowl, goose and probably a couple of game birds - maybe any two of quail, pheasant, partridge or pigeon. Diced rabbit meat will be available in the freezer section.
If I visit a proper butcher’s shop, I can easily get all of the above, plus venison, fresh rabbit or hare and a wide range of game birds. I wouldn’t have to look around too hard to find kangaroo, alligator, ostrich, emu, rhea and kiwi (I actually know a guy that farms those last four birds, so that might be cheating) - goat too if I went to an area with a high immigrant population. With a little ingenuity, I think I could also find a commercial source of squirrel meat (I know of a local restaurant that has it on the menu).
The swans all belong to the queen, so we’re not allowed to eat them. One thing I’ve never seen offered for sale here is horse, at least not explicitly labelled as such.
Good point - I do know it’s perfectly legal, so there’s probably a supplier somewhere. FWIW, my local Tesco has both snails and frog’s legs in the frozen section, the latter being very nice on a barbeque.
Lamb is not commonly eaten where I live (southeast US). It might be available at the grocery store, but it is not prominently displayed. Most people I know don’t care for the texture or have never tried it.
They aren’t. A fruit are the ripened ovaries of a plant, but the outer shell of a green bean doesn’t ripen – it remains the same.
Also, the common definition of fruit is used to designate a sweet ripened seed pod. While it is scientifically correct to call a tomato a fruit, it is perfectly correct to insist it is not a fruit because it’s not sweet: the scientific definition of something is not necessarily the same as the common definition, and that does not make the common definition wrong.
I think there might be some problem with the premise of your question – of all the things you listed, I believe I can get several of them quite easily at several supermarkets – goat, lamb, mutton, duck, goose, quail, rabbit, ostrich, bison – some of them might only be available at upscale places like Whole Foods or Dean and Deluca and some of them might only be available at ethnic groceries and some might be on the expensive side and some (like goose) might be associated with certain holidays, but they’re all readily available.
The question might be: why aren’t these things available in your part of the country?
Or maybe you haven’t explored the upscale supermarkets or ethnic groceries of your region?