Without reading the post and the article, my immediate thought is :
“Gary Larson has started cartooning again!”
It takes cojones to try and smuggle something like that through customs—either that or stupidity.
That would be the rotting meat.
Or the ability to completely ignore and abide slime.
I’m reminded of Colleen McCullouch’s first book in the “Makers of Rome” series, The First Man in Rome, where the soldier finds a veritable trove of edible snails near Carthage on the north Africa coast and makes plans to smuggle them back to the gastronomes of Rome.
It sounds like they got there just in time!
Are you familiar with the term bushmeat? The German autorities call it rotten, the smugglers call it natural bouquet and sell it at a hefty premium. It is horrible: not only is it a vector for diseases, it also is a significant factor in the extermination of many species to mention but two problems that spring to mind with this case. Search for bushmeat, but do not look for pictures if you don’t have the stomach. It is disgusting and sad.
I had heard the term “bushmeat” being used to refer to meat coming from native animals in Africa. I hadn’t heard about it being rotting or decaying. the Wikipedia article on it, in fact, says that it is commonly smoked to preserve it. If there is a demand for decaying bushmeat because of its desired properties (“natural bouquet”), this is the first I’ve heard of it.
When I google it, the images show freshly-killed or smoked animal meat, not the stuff you describe. Is that a particular niche market?
It would seem so: the bushmeat sold in Europe (London is the biggest market, I am afraid, and niche is in the eye of the beholder - it is worth millions, it seems, but like with every illegal trade it is hard to obtain reliable figures) has a long journey behind and as it is mostly smoked or dried in an unprofessional way and was not properly cooled it stinks. German autorities will call the slightest wiff of decay rotten (as they should), but the smugglers would say that is the way it is meant to be, it’s only natural. It is not a desired property, but it is not a deterrent either. Maybe it can be sold as a sign of authenticity. Perhaps the images you see will change if you search for bushmeat in Europe.
Oh, and 20 cm snails! Just what we need here, a new neozoon. I hope it comes with its own parasites too, the more the merrier! Damn smugglers of living beings, they make me mad. The ones that kill, sell and eat apes are the worst, IMO. I have been taking this personal for quite a long time, excuse me if I sound humourless.
Had a Nigerian neighbor once who used to occasionally cook something that was so odoriferous it could clear out most of the courtyard apartment building while it was simmering. But that hunk o’stuff was heavily, heavily salted for preservation so it didn’t stink until it started cooking.
It got to the point that when we heard the hacksaw at work (he really did saw hunks of it off to put in the pot) we’d all find a reason to take prolonged trips elsewhere.
I wonder how long this alleged slime trail could have been.
Not much. I’m still generally not getting the horror show you describe. My earlier search turned up a few maggot-ridden corpses and a couple of images that were described as descaying, but didn’t look it. Maybe it’s just as well there’s no olfactory output from my computer.
It used to be you could get truly exotic game meat from Savenor’s here in Boston, including things like Zebra and Lion. I just looked on their website, and it’s considerably toned down – Alligator, Buffalo, Camel, and such, but they all look as if they’re farm-raised, not something you’d go out hunting for. And thy were sold just like meat in the supermarket – fresh white, pink, or red steaks with no decay placed on plastic foam rays and shrink-wrapped.
There’s probably some underground trade in more questionable bush meat even here in Beantown, but I haven’t seen it.
Several outbreaks of Ebola, and other related diseases, have been traced to bushmeat, although not necessarily due to illegal trade. Rather, these were cases of “animal that is not human = potential meat” and that’s what they ate, largely out of necessity.
I Googled “dried Nigerian meat” and found this, kilishi, which is a variation of jerky. Could it have been that?
Slow meander towards freedom?
Glad they caught the smuggler.
In Africa maybe, debatable. In Düsseldorf? No.
Pretty sure it was some sort of salt fish, at least the time I saw it, but yeah, he could have been having some of that, too.
They do, potentially.
I’d love to have one (a gals, not a rat lungworm) but they are profoundly illegal in the US.
A rat lungworm? Sounds lovely. Really want some G.A.L.S.? You don’t happen to live in Florida?