Antelope sushi, anyone? Restaurant serves up invasive species to rave reviews
CBC Radio | Posted: March 9, 2016 8:38 PM | Last Updated: October 11, 2019
Update, Oct. 11, 2019: Earlier this month a fisherman in Gwinnett County, Ga., reeled in a snakehead fish, according to the New York Times. These fish are voracious predators, and the species is considered highly invasive.
Not realizing what he had caught, the fisherman tossed it back in the water, but not before snapping a photo of it. The state wildlife department later set off an official mission to hunt it down and kill it.
It might have made for welcome fare at Prey, a pop-up restaurant featuring several invasive species on the menu in Miami. As It Happens spoke to Prey's head chef on March 9, 2016. Original story below:
A Miami restaurant is serving up invasive species with the hope of starting a conversation on alternative cuisine.
"Three quarters of our menu is plant-based. Many of the species we do use are unconventional animals that are abundant and under-utilized," Chef Bun Lai tells As It Happens guest host Helen Mann.
The menu highlights animals such as lion fish, which they spear one at a time in the water in front of the 1Hotel South Beach, the location of Lai's pop-up restaurant called Prey.
"We have feral pig as well," said Lai, "It's one of the best meats you'll ever eat."
Also on the menu are items you might find in your backyard, such as Japanese knotweed, "We make them into kimchi pickles, we batter fry them in whole wheat tempura," he said. "It's amazing."
Lai wants people to consider different foods to what you find in many North American restaurants.
"There's alternative ways of eating and living that are nourishing to our bodies and also restorative to the planet as well," he said.