Camel, anyone?

It all goes back to the month I spent in Saudi Arabia for the Hajj pilgrimage. During this period I had experienced the rare occassion of eating some camel meat.
Having mentioned this to friends, some curiosity was aroused, and many were inquiring me to describe what camel meat taste like and how you would prepare a camel dish.

This got me curious, too. I have never thought much about it, and this dish somehow just appeared in the caterer's menu (and I also bought it one time from a street vendor). The meat was already cooked and cubed, and it was served with some kind of curry seasoning. From what I remember, a camel meat tasted nothing much, it was very much on the chewy side.

So, I browsed around the internet to find a well known recipe for cooking a camel dish, only to find this fascinating article.
This article was discussing the authenticity of the proper way to cook a Whole Stuffed Camel, as published in a cookbook called "International Cuisine". I didn't realize that there was so much hyped about eating a camel, until I read the quoted recipe carefully.

Have a look at the following*:



Could this be true??!
I am utterly fascinated to think about the size of the oven to cook this stuffed camel with, and the 110 gallon enabled pot to boil the camel with. Whoa!!

In the end, I don't think this is an impossible recipe to do, and granted that it is in Saudi Arabia (hence it's hot), this explains why you can't put the hunted camel in the freezer and thaw it out before cooking. It makes most sense to deal with freshly slaughtered camel and cook it right away, stuffing it with 20 chickens, and 1 whole lamb.
Think about the amount of work need to be done to skin a whole camel, 20 chickens and 1 whole lamb. It will take a village to cook for a village.

If a restaurant or a caterer actually specializes in this dish, I'd like to go and try it out. And judging from how it's cooked and the elaborate stuffing, it seems like a very delicious dish!

I WANT TO TRY!!!


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* Image was excerpted from http://www.snopes.com/food/prepare/camel.asp, and published without permission