BY ERICA BERRY, NPR

The first time Somali-American chef Jamal Hashi put camel meat on his menu in Minneapolis, it didn’t go well. He tried grinding it into a burger and using chunks of it in a spicy stew, but no matter, the texture was bad and the sales were worse. “It was like chewing on a patty of rubber bands,” he said of the burger.

At its best, camel meat tastes much like lean beef. But certain cuts can be tough, and if the meat comes from an old camel, it can also taste gamey. Hashi had used a shoulder cut, and neither he nor his customers were happy with the results.

Camels may first have been domesticated in the region around Somalia, where they have long been prized for their nutritious milk and meat, and as a mode of transport in the arid environment. “We are a people who constantly travel,” says Hashi. “This is our livestock.”

Which is why Hashi wanted to bring the humped-beast’s meat to Minneapolis, home to the largest population of Somalis in America. So, four years later, he tried again – in 2010. At the time, Hashi owned Safari Express, an East African grill at Minneapolis’ Midtown Global Market. But it was when he applied for a booth at the Minnesota State Fair—a place famous for crazy creations like Spam sushi and deep-fried Snickers — that Hashi thought to reintroduce the traditional “meat of kings” to an American audience. When the fair gave him the green light, Hashi purchased two tons of wild camel from R.W. Meats, a Minnesota-based halal importer and a leading distributor of camel meat in America.

This time, Hashi served the camel doner-kebab style: a skewer of spiced, ground meat mixed with egg and breadcrumbs. It was a hit. He sold out of camel meat in four days. Soon after, he started offering the “The Hashi Burger” at Safari Express, and began ordering a pallet of meat every few months—each of which arrived from, of all places, central Australia.

To understand how Australia became the world’s No. 1 source for camel meat — soothing the culinary homesickness of thousands of Somalis in Minnesota along the way — you have to understand why camels are a problem in the Outback: They’re totally feral, and have caused huge headaches.

In the mid-1800s, the British introduced one-humped Arabian camels from Pakistan and India to help with transport across the vast, arid landscape of Australia. The animals proved hardy and reliable, but with the arrival of the railroad in the early 20th century, the camels became obsolete and were freed. Unchecked by predators, their population swelled.

“By the late 1990s, it had become obvious that something had to be done,” says Quentin Hart, former manager of the Australian government’s Feral Camel Management Project (AFCMP).

Though camels tend to roam in small groups, they congregate en masse to look for water during dry spells. That notion of camels storing water in their humps? Not true. The humps store fat, and while this is a good source of energy for trekking across arid landscapes, Hart says it is “a bit of a myth” that camels can survive for a long time in extreme conditions. Like any animal, they get thirsty. And when they get thirsty, they get desperate.

Read more: The Long, Slow Trek To Get Americans To Eat Camel Meat

Source: NPR