Oh it was wild...

Somehow the stars aligned and I was in the South Island for the annual Wild Foods Festival in Hokitika. It started out with a group of farmers who wanted to one-up each other by eating weird things and became so popular over the years that they now have a major beer sponsor and attract 17,000 people.

It can best be described as a hybrid of Apple Blossom with a stagette/Halloween party. I got there at 9am and most of the people there camping out in the parking lots had already started drinking. But there were families and tourists who wanted to try the food. I walked down to the main area, a large park with a big open field acting as a giant beer garden with $4 beer and it was already busy. I knew it was going to be a good day.

People dress up in theme, mostly in groups. So a bunch of friends will come as lifeguards, police, cowboys or just weird clothing. And then there are several acts ranging from African drumming to a Bee Gees tribute band and everyone sits around drinking and eating. People were very friendly and going alone wasn't bad at all.

I immediately tried the crickets, all of the food was served in conjunction with other food so the cricket was on a cracker with cream cheese. It looked disgusting (pictures to come, these are only digital and I couldn't crop or fiddle with them) but wasn't bad at all.

I have decided that after eating the venison (deer) burger that I like venison. It was the third time I tried it and I will continue to eat it at home. I also tried horse and it tasted like low grade beef. Surprisingly I had never had rabbit before, which was nothing special. Grasshopper was also a bit tough because it was so large that you had to eat it in two bites.

Look closely and you can see the big black grasshopper.

However, like Apple Blossom it gets a bit dodgy around 4 or 5pm. It was a long hot day and everyone was drinking excessively. To make matters worse in New Zealand you can drink on the street so even if you wanted to leave the festival you could continue drinking in public (although apparently not in the town square that day). My shuttle came to pick me up at 5pm and I was happy to leave.

Some highlights below:

A favorite among the boys, these were cow udders and I planned to go back but forgot.

The worms were in sushi so not much of a feat to attempt.

I saved opossum for the next day when we were going to Bushman Pete's on the way to Franz Josef, he calls them chicken of the forest and makes them into pies! It was okay it tasted like dark chicken meat, apparently they sell it Taiwan for $17 a kg. I imagine that's what rat and dog taste like too.