Invasive species make good eats

Published 9:47 pm Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Here’s a solution we can all stomach. Invasive species have had a significant effect on the United States, on Texas and on East Texas. Invaders such as feral hogs, kudzu, zebra mussels and nutria cost the country an estimated $137 billion each year.

So let’s eat them.

There’s a growing movement to address the problem of invasive species by viewing them not as just an economic disaster, but as a culinary opportunity.

Writing last week in The Atlantic, Nancy Matsumoto reported, “the Texas Nature Conservancy held a ‘Malicious but Delicious,’ dinner, where Austin chefs Ned and Jodi Elliott classed up a bunch of invasives for a four-course menu of popovers with a salpicon of tiger prawns, bastard cabbage orecchiette, porchetta of feral hog, and lime and Himalayan blackberry tart.”

According to Smith County Extension Agent Chad Gulley, an “invasive species” is something that doesn’t belong here, and often has no natural predators to keep its numbers down.

“Once established, these invasive species can compete with native species and interfere with the local ecosystem causing economic and environmental damage,” Gulley says. “As invasive species move into a new area, they may thrive due to a favorable environment and no known predators, competition or diseases that may keep the species in check in its native habitat.”

That’s the case with feral hogs, the descendents of domestic pigs that probably escaped from farms.

“Feral swine represent a vast and growing threat to wildlife across America,” says Bentley Johnson, public lands legislation representative from the National Wildlife Federation. “Feral swine are eating, rooting and wallowing their way through forests, fields and wetlands, aggressively devouring and destroying our native plants and wildlife habitat.”

But there’s something else you should know about feral hogs — they’re pretty tasty. Ben Wheeler has declared itself the “Wild Hog Capital of Texas” and devotes a weekend festival to feral pigs and a whole-hog cookoff.

State officials note that it’s always open season for hunting and trapping feral hogs — though if you’re hunting them at night, a call to the game warden is prudent.

This is part of a nationwide trend.

“Conservation biologist Joe Roman runs a website called Eat the Invaders, stocked with informative descriptions of a wide range of invasive species and recipes for preparing them,” The Atlantic explains. “Roman’s personal favorites are green crabs in their soft shell stage sautéed and served with French bread.”

That site lists recipes for things such as kudzu, carp and bullfrog.

Human consumption alone won’t solve the invasive species problem. Nutria, for example, pervades the Louisiana swamps and portions of East Texas. The Eat the Invaders website has a recipe for slow-roasted nutria that includes potatoes, garlic and onion. But that can’t overcome the fact that nutria looks like a giant rat. And for the most part, people aren’t interested.

But some species seem more palatable. In addition to hogs, antelope and non-native deer populations are rising. They reportedly make pretty good eating.

If every problem is an opportunity, then invasive species are no exception. So let’s dig in.