The latest furor over sales of lion meat spurred Microkhan to look up the delicacy’s pricing history. According to this 2003 article, a pound of lion meat then went for roughly $35, or $2.19 per ounce. Five years later, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times had a 14-ounce lion chop at a steakhouse, a feast which cost her $48 ($3.43).
It’s a bit unclear what’s happened since, but the latest lion-meat vendor to hit The Tubes is selling the stuff for a fortune: $199.99 per pound, or $12.50 per ounce.
Microkhan can only guess at why prices have soared. Perhaps vendors have added an “outrage premium,” seeing as how the lion-meat trade has stirred up passions among animal-rights activists. Or maybe, as some exotic-game gourmands have long suspected, cheaper lion isn’t really lion at all, but rather liger, cougar, or another big cat. Even a discerning palate would be hard-pressed to tell the difference, or so we guess.
For the record, Microkhan (a dedicated omnivore) is pretty skeeved out by the notion of lion meat. It’s perfectly legal in this country, assuming the cats weren’t housed on a rescue preserve. (A Missouri ranch once got in serious hot water for flouting that rule.) But I dunno—there’s something rather unsporting and sad about turning Aslan into dinner. We’ll stick with squab, thank you very much.
Jordan // Apr 14, 2009 at 12:15 pm
There’s also the basic fact that predators usually don’t taste very good. Too many concentrated nasties from being on the top of the food chain.
Brendan I. Koerner // Apr 14, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Except shark. Shark meat is awesome. Though, granted, I haven’t had it in about 20 years, and likely never will again. If only they could raise it in farms, a la salmon…