How To Cook an Alligator

I guess it started when the blue-haired old ladies of the southern Gulf states had a change of mind. That’s when the “specialty meat” started becoming available, appearing in menus Down South.

Apparently, pro-animal Southern dowagers had been key supporters of species preservation laws enacted in the sixties; but they eventually came to question some of that support.

Support for alligators, specifically. 
One too many of these caring old dears in Florida had watched in horror as a fearsome reptile that she was instrumental in saving slithered out of a nearby canal, into her backyard, and dragged off her precious Fluffy the poodle. So, when alligators got kicked off the endangered species lists, businessmen stepped in.

 In my case, I was introduced to the “delicacy” by a firm called AquaCulture Technologies.

This was the summer of 1988. I had been given creative control over some of the menu while Stan Tankursely was converting Caroline's for Comedy--an old bar-nightclub--into a soul-food restaurant. I was executive chef and was filling the menu with many of my innovative recipes as well Stan's--using traditional ones, and dreaming up ways to keep a Manhattan restaurant that was started in the summer, of all times, from sinking into oblivion. 
Delta 88 was all about the down-home craze of 1988, the classic Oldsmobile, and tummy-rubbing good grub from the Mississippi delta. We had everything you’d expect us to have on that southern-and-soul-food menu–-everything but chitt’lins, which would have stunk up the kitchen

When the AquaCulture rep arrived one day with my eighty pounds of catfish fillets and sixty whole, boned-and-gutted trout, he asked me “What about alligator?”

I’m a natural sort of guy, so I responded, naturally, “What about alligator?”

The salesman proceeded to brag about how AquaCulture was the first modern fish-farming company to take on the raising of the reptile for meat, and how I might have some fun playing with recipes. 
To make it real simple for me, he gave me two five-pound blocks of frozen tail meat. If I said “I was game,” a cartoon alligator with a shotgun would probably pop up out of this cartoon story and lay a cap in my...tail meat. But that’s what I was-–game to play around with the stuff. I accepted the gift

Delta 88 was holding its own despite the unpropitious timing of its opening. We hired gospel groups that usually returned to the South after a weekend of performing in city churches in Black communities, to perform in our “Monday Night is Gospel Night” program–- and the place, five weeks after its opening, was catching on. I had enough to do on-site, putting in seventy-plus-hour weeks; so I took the blocks of frozen tail meat home that weekend and thawed them out on my worktable.

I clamped a hand-cranked meat grinder to the edge of the table, since one of the recipes I dreamt up was for alligator sausage. In another pot, pieces of tail meat the size of beef stew chunks marinated in vinegar and lots of apple cider.

Louis L’Amour watched hungrily.

My late wife gave him that name because she supposed the dog to be French. Louis was a black standard poodle–-a lover and not a fighter. The runt of the litter. And that day, when I ground up the thawed-out tail meat for my sausages, and the bloody water leaked out of the grinder and puddled on the floor, Louis L’Amour became the first of his species to reverse the evolution of the food chain: he lapped up the alligator blood while wagging his tail.

I put together three recipes that day--–sausages, to be served with two sides, alligator stew with potatoes, apples, onions, celery and a few other things–-and spicy alligator fingers: pounded strips of meat (‘gator is not a tender meat) that were then breaded, deep-fried and served as an appetizer with Delta 88's spicy Crystal Butter Sauce.

As I considered how to present all of this, I realized that the downside of Delta 88's summer opening could be used to our advantage. It was all about the seasons...

I’d  come to the restaurant field from journalism, so I knew that the summertime--when so many readers are away, when nothing much happens, and when no one cares because they’re all on vacation–-is the key time of any year for the so-called human interest story to make it into media. It’s called in the trade, the “Silly Season.”

Caroline Hirsch, impresario of Caroline’s Comedy Club, was the owner of Delta 88, so her publicist took my cue and began sending out press notices about my alligator dishes. I gave the stew the name “LaCoste Stew” and it caught the eye of The Wall Street Journal, which put a blurb about it on their front page.

In all, fourteen reviews or notices appeared heralding what I’d dubbed “The First New York Alligator Festival.”

Alligator tastes like a combination of chicken and tuna. That’s all I have to say about it. Do I care that so many innocent animals were blah-blah-blah? Look-–the recipes are below. If you follow any one (or all) of them and come to the conclusion that I have advanced the cause of humans eating big, "helpless", Fluffy-the-poodle-eating, lizardy carnivores, well... (Why do you think there was no Second New York Alligator Festival?)

LaCoste Stew

ingredients:

½ lb. new red potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters

2 lbs. alligator tail meat cut into 2" chunks

1 ½ cups  peeled , diced carrots

1 lb. Roma apples, peeled and cored, cut into 1" pieces

½ cup peeled, sliced onion

½ cup diced celery

1 12-oz can of white cannelini beans, drained

4 cups (1 quart) apple cider

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground black pepper

2 tbsp. olive oil

3-quart stock pot

1.- set a small pot of water to boil. Add the potatoes and return to boil and cook for 10 minutes;

2- heat oil in stock pot, then add onions and saute until translucent;

3- add carrots, celery and apples. Toss and continue to saute for 2 more minutes;

4- add the tail meat and increase the temperature to medium high. Saute until slightly browned (but do not let other ingredients burn–-be sure to keep stirring);

5- pour in cider, stir and bring to a simmer;

6- add the beans and semi-cooked potatoes, salt and pepper;

7- bring to a slow boil, lower the heat to a simmer, cover and cook over low heat for 45 minutes

Alligator Sausages

ingredients:

2 lbs. alligator tail meat cut into 2" chunks

½ lb. pork fat cut into 1" pieces

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp. finely grated apple peel

½ tsp. allspice

1 tsp. Cayenne pepper

1 tbsp. salt

2 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tbsp. onion juice*

12 pieces of string cut into 4" lengths

2 yards of sausage casings

garlic press

meat grinder with medium grind disk,  fitted with sausage feeder

1-* to obtain 1 tbsp. of onion juice, squeeze onion pieces in garlic press and save in small bowl ;

2- in a glass or ceramic bowl, sprinkle salt, pepper, Cayenne, allspice, apple peel gratings, onion juice and cider vinegar over the chunks of tail meat and pork fat and allow to marinate (tossing every ten minutes) for about an hour;

3- slide the end of the length of sausage casings over the fluted end of the sausage feeder attached to your meat grinder;

4- drain the liquid from the marinated tail meat;

5- grind the tail meat and pork fat into the sausage casings and tie off every 5 inches. Tie off the ends.

6-hang in a cool, dry place to dry and cure for about 4 hours;

7- pan fry and serve.

Spicy Alligator Fingers

ingredients:

1 lb. alligator tail meat cut into strips 3" long and about ½" thick;

1 1/2 cups flour

½ cup stone ground cornmeal

1 cup apple cider vinegar

3 tbsp. salt

½ cup melted butter

1/4 cup Crystal (brand) hot sauce

oil for deep frying

1- place a number of tail meat strips between wax paper and pound flat; repeat until all are done;

2- in a bowl, marinate pounded “fingers” in the vinegar for about ½ hour;

3- heat oil to 375°

4- remove alligator “fingers” from marinade and pat semi-dry

5- in a shallow bowl, combine salt, cornmeal and flour;

6- dredge “fingers” in flour-salt and deep fry until golden;

7- meanwhile, stir together the hot sauce and melted butter until smoothly combined;

8- drain/blot deep-fried strips and serve with Crystal Butter Sauce.