June 23, 2010
Would You Eat a Lion Burger?
Lions are often called magnificent, majestic, the “king of beasts.” They’re not often called “meat.”
Lion in South Africa, courtesy of Flickr user Martin Heigan.
But lion meat has been on the menu of several U.S. restaurants in recent years. In South Philadelphia, one restaurant tried serving lion for about six weeks in 2008. As this article explains (with the witty lead-in: “Simba for dinner? You lion.”), Chef Michael Zulli took it off the restaurant’s menu after being barraged with “how-do-you-sleep-at-night phone calls” from the public. He said he didn’t see what the big deal was, since the meat came from an Illinois farm where the animals are legally raised for human consumption.
That same year, a St. Petersburg Times reporter wrote a rave review of a steak house’s lion rib chops. This spring in Sacramento, Flaming Grill Cafe, which specializes in exotic meats like alligator, yak and ostrich, briefly sold lion meat burgers. And this week, another U.S. restaurant—this time in Mesa, Arizona—earned notoriety for serving lion meat as part of a novelty menu to celebrate the World Cup and its host nation, South Africa. The owner reportedly received a bomb threat and more than 150 angry e-mails, and seemed bemused by the outrage. The Telegraph quotes him as saying: “In Africa they do eat lions, so I assume if it’s OK for Africans to eat lions then it should be OK for us.”
Is it really? In the wild, African lions are considered a “vulnerable species,” only one step below endangered, and up to one-quarter of wild lion populations have been lost in the past decade or two. But lions raised on game farms—as was said to be the case in all of the above examples—don’t factor into wild populations. So, on the one hand, maybe it doesn’t really matter. On the other hand: doesn’t creating a market for lion meat as an expensive delicacy risk encouraging the growth of a black market in illegally hunted lion meat?
And then there’s the basic gut feeling many people have that it’s morally wrong to eat lions, the way it makes most of us squeamish to think about eating a house cat, a dog or a horse. They’re too intelligent; too simpatico. (There’s not a lot of logic when you think it through—it’s not a matter of size or fur or even cuteness, since most of us eat creatures like cows and rabbits. But who said feelings were logical?)
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That’s freakin gross! I can’t believe what people are doing. You know, if meat of animals did not exist tomorrow morning…people would eventually cut each other up, cook the meat and eat it. I think serving lion meat is degrading to these beautiful and exotic animals. Humans are despicable…really. I quit eating meat because I couldn’t imagine how I would react to my dog being chopped up and eaten. We humans are so freakin head over heels about having such mass capabilities…Just like the oil spill…all that marine life dying..if lives of humans were in the same degree of danger as marine life is because of this oil spill………WE WOULD BE in a damn nuclear war.
I wouldn’t eat it regularly, but for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, sure. I’d give it a try.
Uh…cannibals already do cut each other up, cook the meat and eat it.
I think that anybody who is outraged by eating lions and not cows, pigs, chicken, and fish needs to have a long chat with themselves. People should live in peace with animals rather than eating them. :) Is being a vegetarian so hard compared to what our food animals need to go through? No – it’s just a matter of convenience. STOP EATING ANIMALS <3
I’d serve lion in my restaurant, but only if I couldn’t find the ingredients necessary to make my world famous baby panda steaks with porpoise sticks in fluffy white kitten gravy. Yum
Not a fan of eating carnivores (land-animal ones anyway), nor of felines, nor of threatened wild species (even if farm-raised). Kinda gross idea. So, No.
Not only would I, I did. I generally don’t eat any land animals, but will try anything once on this trip through the universe. The CA State Fair has a booth featuring a TON of exotic game this year.
People who are outraged by this but still eat cows, pigs and lamb really need to figure things out. Either you are morally opposed to eating meat or you aren’t. The lion in question was farm raised, just like any other meat you find at the grocery store.
PS It was delicious.
disgusting
I like it