Eating Bats | National Geographic

in the far reaches of Papua New Guinea
the Caron tribesmen hunt a delectable
dish it has fur fangs and claws and it’s
not something most Westerners would dare
to taste it’s a bat the flying fox back
to be precise the same you won’t
mistreat louse
it’s tasty meat flying fox more lugar
movies a couple of times a month we eat
it to Westerners bats are the stuff of
nightmares and horror movies just say
that and many think of vampires sinking
their fangs into helpless victims even
in the real world
bats are thought of as carriers of
dreaded diseases like rabies but in the
Madonn region of Papua New Guinea the
Caron people have a long tradition of
hunting bats as food the flying fox is
the most common Drita bat here it’s also
the largest bat in the world that means
bigger claws bigger teach and bigger
wings these fruit eaters can weigh up to
three-and-a-half pounds 50 times as much
as the average back
the flying fox bats aren’t easy to catch
but for these car and men it is a
tradition they have been raised from
boyhood to use ingenuity and homemade
weapons to nab them today they’ll mount
a sneak attack through the thick
overgrowth and come at the bats from
behind the flying fox bats wait
unsuspectingly with their beady eyes and
large wings the men will have to wade
into the lake but there’s one problem
these waters are teeming with deadly
crocodiles
everyone said we went into the trees
ey hit them while they were hanging down
they fell down and we caught them they
fell into the water and we got them and
put them in the canoe back at the
village fresh coconuts are cut up for
the main dish the hunters steered clear
of the crocodiles and brought home
plenty of bats now look now I’m sending
the hair on the flying fox path the bat
is roasted until the fur is gone
then cut up into pieces and lightly
boiled much of the meat remains raw this
creature has fangs claws and leathery
wings which would make it highly
unappetizing to most Outsiders but these
men’s mouths are watering as an
appetizer the chefs also roast sago
grubs a little green garnish completes
the dish as the ones who brought it back
to the village the hunters will eat
first
they eat the bat bones as well as the
meat and how does raw bat meat taste
this is what it tastes like chicken
same kind of flavor it tastes good
a lot of the place won’t shake I got
other places don’t eat the list we don’t
know about their food traditions we eat
them because our ancestors did and so
will our children and grandchildren
you