What I'm trying to say is, for the grand majority of Australians, Roo meat doesn't even register as a blip on the radar. I'd be as likely to ask an Aussie if they can eat it just as much as any other nationality. Its a gimmick food, a food we give to tourists and not one we associate with national identity.
Using lamingtons, meat pies, tim tams or pavlova would have been much much better.
Of the emats you mention I would say that turkey, lamb, rabbit and mussels are consumed in
much greater quantities that emu or roo (I've met one Aussie whose eaten Emu and he did it on a drunken dare), while roo shooting is common, mussels are trailer gourmet, people still do turkey for xmas and lamb is a national meat.
There you go... lamb. That would have served better.
Using roo reinforces and untrue stereotype about Australia.
EDIT: Linky dinks:
http://www.awpc.org.au/kangaroos/eating2.htm
Australia has no culture for the eating of kangaroo meat. It was eaten during the starving tomes of early white settlement but was considered a poor substitute for beef, sheep meats, pork and chicken.
Kangaroo meat has been eaten in some restaurants in the State of South Australia for about 20 years. However, the market has remained very small.
In 1993-4, because or the constitutional freedom of trade between the Australian States, it became legal to sell kangaroo meat for human consumption throughout Australia.
The kangaroo industry spent a large sum running into millions in an attempt to increase sales in Australia. This has failed badly. The large supermarket chains either did not attempt to sell kangaroo meat or quickly ceased doing so when the pilot schemes failed and they became aware of the possibilities for food poisoning from meat obtained from bush-shot carcasses.
The industry surrounded the product with a series of fabrications - for example, that the kangaroos are farmed and the animals are killed and inspected in abattoirs.
Following the abject failure to sell kangaroo meat in other than small quantities in Australia the industry has attempted to penetrate overseas markets pretending that the product is accepted in Australia.
http://www.rirdc.gov.au/pub/shortreps/improve.html
When asked what types of meat came to mind, 10% of respondents made unprompted mentions of Kangaroo meat. When prompted, a further 83% indicated they were aware of Kangaroo meat giving a total awareness level of 93%
Without prompting only 10% of Australians even identify Roo as a meat. they need prompting. You can prompt for anything.
25% of respondents had consumed Kangaroo meat in the past twelve months. A further 26% had eaten Kangaroo meat at previous times but not in the past 12 months giving a total of 51% who had eaten Kangaroo meat at one time or another. Awareness and usage of Kangaroo meat was considerably higher in Adelaide where the meat has been available for some years, than it was in other cities.
Seems high? Read on.
On average, those who had eaten kangaroo meat in the past year had done so 4.75 times. This average, however, is influenced by a few heavy users. If those heavy users are excluded, the average falls to a more realistic 2.72 times per year. In fact, 40% of all the users had only eaten it once and 24% twice.
So in reality although over 50% of people have eaten it, its mostly been a one shot or two shot experience. Not a regular consumtpion.
There were 66% who had eaten Kangaroo meat at restaurants, 28% who had eaten it at home, and 24% at 'Other Places' (Mainly at friends' homes). Looking further into the above figures, we find that 50% of users ate Kangaroo only at restaurants, 15% only at home, and 18% only at other places, while 11% ate it at both home and restaurants.
Reinforcing my argument that roo is a gimmick or novelty mear in Australia.
When I ate it at home it was an 'event'. We eat sushi occasionally at home. Curries, mexican food, european food, duck. These are not 'events'. Eating roo at home was an 'event'. Something to make sure you were home for and to tell people about.
