Tangent from
Let’s leave out fish, because there are so many of them. And shellfish, etc. This thread is about eating birds and mammals.
I love duck.
I had some game bird a friend shot over, which was superb, and i wish i remembered what it was.
Pigeon is surprisingly delicious, despite my always being a little anxious where the restaurant is sourcing it and what it’s been eating.
I make myself a goose once a year as a treat, but if I’m being honest, the skin is the really good part.
I’m also a big fan of roast chicken. Chicken is so often overcooked, though, or cooked with so much seasoning you can’t taste the chicken. I’ve been buying locally raised “freedom ranger” birds that i think are really tasty.
I eat turkey once a year, on Thanksgiving. If i buy a fabulously expensive heritage bird it’s not bad, but chicken is better.
Quail is fun, but a lot of work to eat, and not any tastier than larger birds.
I had some song bird roasted on a stick in Japan that was just a bite it two. Honestly, it mostly tasted “roasted”
Capercaillie is heavenly, as is hazel grouse.
I think my favorite meat is squab (pigeon). It has an almost foie gras background flavor. I’ve only had it a couple of times, because it’s rare. I occasionally see it frozen at fancier supermarkets.
After that, it’s cow (corn-fed prime midwestern beef), sheep (local lamb), and chicken (air-cooled bought-fresh-today organic).
It’s hard for me to rank mammals. Also, my preferences are more driven by feeling bad about killing them. So I don’t eat much pork, and try to avoid pork that was raised in factory farms. (Although i love the hot & sour soup with pork in it from a nearby Chinese restaurant.) And i eat a lot of lamb, because sheep are dumb, and usually raised on pasture. But i do enjoy a nice piece of lamb.
I like beef. I confess that i like conventionally raised beef more than grass-fed beef. (Whereas pastured pork really tastes better than factory pork.)
I had antelope in south Africa. Springbok, impala, and kudu. The first two tasted similar, and were delicious. The kudu was the toughest cut of meat i have ever eaten. It was also one of the tastiest. Chew, this is delicious, chew chew, chew but wow it’s tough, chew, but yum, chew chew, chew.
I’ve had tiny pieces of elk and moose. And more substantial servings of venison and reindeer. The elk was delicious. I’d have to eat more to have a strong opinion, but up there with my favorites. I didn’t care much for venison, and there’s a reason Scandinavia doesn’t export reindeer meat. It’s like venison, only tougher, drier, and gamier. I wasn’t wild about moose, either. Horse tastes similar to elk to me, and i thought it was delicious. But again, maybe i don’t want to be eating a lot of horse.
I have a rack of goat in my freezer. I had another a few years ago. I’ve also had goat cooked in Indian dishes, sometimes. It is similar to lamb, but goatier. Like the difference between goat cheese and sheep cheese. But goats, like pigs, seem kinda smart to be eating, so i don’t eat it often. (The goat in my freezer comes from a tourist farm, where petting baby animals is part of the experience. At least it had a nice life before it was slaughtered.) I have to confess that I’ve liked the cows that I’ve met, too.
Oh, and rabbit. Rabbit meat is bland and fatty. (Yes, I’ve heard of rabbit starvation. The domestic rabbits I’ve eaten were obviously better feed than wild ones.) I have nothing against eating rabbit, but I’d rather eat chicken or turkey.
I’m sure I’ve never had Capercaillie, but the game bird might have been an eastern grouse.
Oh, and I’ve had ostrich and bison. Ostrich is tough and dry. It’s only edible really rare. It doesn’t taste bad, but it’s about the last meat I’d choose to eat. Bison tastes like beef. Really really beefy beef. Slightly gamey beef. My experience is that the first bite or two is delicious and then it gets too strong.
I’m trying to see if William Buckland, early 19th century natural scientist, and his son Francis, who between them aimed to eat a representative of every beastie as ever graced Noah’s Ark, plus anything else they could masticate, had a preference.
William’s worst was mole, beaten by bluebottle fly, but maybe he liked most other things [or thought they all tasted like chicken and had a hard time choosing]. Francis was disappointed by sea slug, earwig and panther cutlets.
Fussy eaters can be a pain in the arse for any parent, and I’m sure Francis was no different.
It’s funny to me that you won’t eat as much goat because you think they are smarter than sheep. Having had both, sheep are much smarter than people think but goats are assholes. Therefore you should eat them with zero guilt.
I would rank lamb, specifically Basque style baked lamb neck that you can get at The Star in Elko NV as the best beast to eat.
Interesting. My interactions with sheep have never suggested that.
I will say that lamb is widely available here, and kid isn’t, so it’s not a choice that comes up very often.
I am impressed by the variety of animals @puzzlegal has eaten. Though I consider myself an adventurous eater, and have tried many styles and nationalities of cuisine, my actual animal consumption variety is lower, though I’m game (heh) to try anything.
Of the birds I believe I’ve only had chicken and turkey. No pigeon, no quail, I don’t think I’ve ever even had duck. So of the two I would give chicken the edge.
Of the beasts my variety is a little better. Elk jerky (oddly soft and light-colored, almost more like chicken than beef), lots of venison, a bison burger or two (the diner that advertIsed bison burgers I think may have been cheating by mixing ground beef with their bison, or even outright lying, because it tasted like an ordinary hamburger to me), fried alligator fritters in Florida (yes, it tasted like chicken, but tough and chewy), and of course pork and beef. Oh, and once we visited my dad’s Aunt and Uncle when I was around 9 and they showed me their cute ‘pet’ bunnies they kept in cages behind the garage. We stayed for dinner. I asked what I was eating…rabbit stew, of course. After the initial shock of putting the pieces together I shrugged and kept eating. Rabbit is like stringy chicken.
Of the beasts I would have to give the win to good old beef. Can’t beat a seared on the outside, perfectly medium rare on the inside, juicy steak.
Oh yeah, I had goat in a curry at an Indian lunch buffet once.
If you’ve had colitis (I have) eating red meat is out, as it’s associated with relapse. The one exemption is… rabbit.
We found rabbit in mustard sauce on a menu in Granville (in Normandy) last year. God, was that a treat.
The French are also keen on Guinea fowl (pintade) and that’s nice enough.
Closer to home, Curry Goat is a common dish in South London (Caribbean origin). I used to love that, back in the day.
Within my restricted diet, my favorite meat would have to be duck - either roasted til crispy, or confit.
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I kind of collect meats. My visit to New Orleans was great, in part because i got to try turtle, alligator, and crawfish for the first time.
The turtle was in soup, and did not add a pronounced flavor to the soup. A little disappointing, but i can say I’ve tried it.
Alligator looks like fish, with short white “bands”, but it’s tough and chewy, and bland in flavor. I’ve since tried crocodile in Australia, and they are similar.
Crawfish were disappointing. They look like tiny lobsters, but they are also very bland. I understand why they are usually served with a strongly-flavored sauce. Among lobster, shrimp, several types of crab, and crawfish, crawfish are dead last, even after the south African rock lobster that isn’t nearly as good as Atlantic lobster.
Reminds me, there used to be a little restaurant in Detroit called the “Turtle Soup Inn”, and I loved their turtle soup. It was thick with chopped turtle meat. If I had to describe it, I’d say maybe slightly fishy chicken with the texture of chopped clams…? Which sounds kind of disgusting, but it was delicious. I’d get it in quart containers to go all the time. It seemed to ward off illness if I felt like I was coming down with a cold or something.
Once I was eating a bowl of turtle soup in the place, sitting at the counter. The owner came up, saw approvingly I was having the turtle soup, and said “turtle soup makes you horny! I have a bowl or two, go home to the wife, and make her happy!”
I ordered frogs legs on a date once. I think only for the opportunity to pretend to make them jump while going ‘ribit ribit’. Hey, I was only 20 at the time. It got a laugh. I remember them tasting ok but not something I’d go out of my way to seek out. Again, kind of like chicken.
I’ve enjoyed both ostrich and emu in their ground form, making excellent meat loafs and pasta sauces from them. I’ve had some not bad emu steaks too, but they need to be pretty rare and appropriately seasoned.
I do love quail, but they are a lot of work for a small bit of meat.
Alligator tasted like fishy chicken, not my favorite flavor profile. Meanwhile, seal tasted like fishy beef, also not something I look forward to.
Elk, deer, caribou, and other cervids can be tasty but so much depends on their age, diet, and how the meat’s prepared.
Frog legs can be really quite nice. So can smoked eel.
I’ve loved turtle meat in soups and stews when it’s fresh.
Hey, no violating causality or messing with the space-time continuum by responding to my post before I post it! You could destroy the metaverse that way! 
Sorry about that. Yeah, people are constantly saying to me “stop all that messing with the space-time continuum, Billy Pilgrim!”
I’m a fan of venison, but really, any smoked meats of any kind too.
So it goes.
I had frog legs once, as a teenager. They were kinda fun. I wouldn’t seek them out, but would eat again.