Would you pick a crocodile's tongue off the menu? How about some croc salami?
You wouldn't be alone if you've never tried crocodile, but there's been an increasing demand for meat from the well-known predator.
Martin Bouchier, chef at the Darwin CBD restaurant Phat Mango, is not sure how he's going to serve a crocodile's tongue, but he knows for certain it's going somewhere on his new menu in March.
"It's actually surprisingly tender," he said.
"It doesn't get that sinewy effect. It doesn't have the wear and tear that the muscles get."
"There's not a lot of flavour in it, but it takes the flavours of the stuff that you put with it."
The croc tongue is about a quarter of the size of a chicken breast.
"I find it odd that one part of an animal is classed as something different to another part of an animal. If it comes off an animal then it's there to be eaten," he said.
"So much stuff gets wasted and it shouldn't really be turned into just rissoles and mince.
Looking at a croc from the inside out
Over in Central Queensland, John Lever, who owns and runs Koorana Crocodile Farm, doesn't think of himself as a meat producer.
"Our primary production here on the farm is the skin, the meat is the by-product," he said.
But the pandemic has flipped his business model on its head.
"We can hardly keep up with the demand [for meat] at the moment," he said.
While the crocodile industry is usually focused on the animal's skin, his business has had to make some changes because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We've got a stockpile of skins over there at the moment, but because of COVID, we haven't been able to sell our skins," he said.
"There's no other buyer who can come out to grade the skins and offer a price.
"We're a bit hamstrung with that at the moment, because the skin is the main product from the crocodile."
But the sale of meat has since become an important part of the business.
A niche market
Finding markets for crocodile meat may be getting easier, with the ongoing development of new ways that the meat can be used.
One new market is crocodile salami.
"We [weren't] exploring it, it actually came out of the blue to us," he said.
"We were quite astounded when we got a phone call from a guy in Sydney and he said I want to try and make crocodile salami.
"And so he did."
You want what?
Greg Little is the part-owner of Salami Shack, the Melbourne-based business behind crocodile salami.
"Someone at a market asked me about crocodile," he said.
"We get lots of different requests for different things.
"Some work and some don't, but that's one that did work."
Mr Little said although some people enjoy the novelty of crocodile salami, he doesn't think it's going to be the next big thing.
"I think it's a niche market," he said.
Why have I suddenly lost my appetite?
Some of us might eat the same foods our whole lives. While others might enjoy eating insects at a foreign market.
Bodymatters Australasia psychologist Sarah McMahon said we are conditioned to be adventurous with food.
"What we eat is purely socialised, it's something we learned from a early age," she said.
"Even going back as far as the old testament there were rules and restrictions about what we can eat and what was safe and not safe.
"Animals that scavenge or eat 'rubbish' are the things we'd be more likely to get sick from.
"A lot of religions have rules around food and the concept is around purity.
She said that underlying that mentality is a belief around health benefits.
