Tastes like chicken

A big fan of dog food with horsey remains, Recharger doesn’t get the latest fuss over illegal meat. Last Saturday, city health inspectors threw a hissy fit when they found 15 pounds of iguana meat for sale in a West Indian market in Brooklyn and 200 pounds of cow lungs for sale at a another Brooklyn store. At a Manhattan West African grocery, they freaked when they found smoked rodent meat for sale. The owner—a perfectly nice man—claimed he didn’t speak English and didn’t know the word “rodent.” (Neither do we).

Inspectors claim many New York groceries buy meat from unregulated wholesalers, then sell them to immigrants who use them in back-home recipes. Inspectors also claim that meat killed in the wild—the freshest kind, by the way—is illegal. And they are cracking down. In September alone, state officials confiscated 65 percent more illegal food—1.6 million pounds—than all of 2005. Joseph Corby, director of the State’s Division of Food Safety and Inspection said his inspectors are working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to stop illegal food sales. One of the worst-offending neighborhoods is Chinatown in Manhattan where the Bor Kee Food Market was caught selling unidentified red meat and mystery fish paste. Nearby, Dahing Seafood Market was caught selling uninspected frogs.

– Maria Stavrakis