EXOTIC MEATS

GOAT (Cabrito) 

Another of our more unusual categories which we consider an "Exotic" is goat. A small town in west Texas, Electra is the home of the World Championship Goat Cookoff. This particular cookoff is one that began as many cookoffs do in Texas. One "good ole boy" says to another "good ole boy" "I can cook goat better than you"; and the other says "no you can’t"! Thus is born a cookoff. 

These two "good ole boys" met on the river bank and did their thing. This went on for a number of years.....each year gaining a few more cookers. A member of the Lone Star Barbecue Society who also lives in Electra thought it was time for the cookoff to become a "sanctioned" event. Thus was born the "World Championship Goat Cookoff". 

Goat or Cabrito as it is called in local Tex-Mex Restaurants in Texas is available on a limited basis in Texas. Usually it is an item that needs to be ordered from a meat market (butcher shop). Small goats are preferred because they are less gamy tasting and not as heavy. Slow cooking is the method for cooking it is certainly an "art" to prepare. Texas cooks and some from Oklahoma as well, participate in this cookoff. Anyone else is welcome to join us and try their hand cooking this delicacy. Maybe we will add a recipe or two later in the year.

WILD HOG 

Crowell, Texas home of the Wild Hog Championship barbeque cookoff.. No! this is not a name of a cookoff....it is the product prepared for the cookoff. 

Back in the early 70’s farmers in Texas decided they wanted to raise hogs much like the Emu & Ostrich ranchers of the 80's & 90’s. For whatever reason, the "pig" market in Texas didn’t work out and the ranchers (farmers) began to turn these domestic hogs loose. As one might expect, they did run loose and they began to mate with javelinas and began to inbred and the "wild" ferral hog was born. 

This hog has multiplied so much that is open season, no limits on shooting them or capturing them. They tend to live around creeks and destroy the crops. In Crowell they capture the young hogs and bring them in and fatten them up. Then they are taken to a slaughter house and are dressed out given USDA Inspections and taken to a locker plant where they are frozen for purchase by the entrants in the cookoff competition.