"camel meat" news and stories

Like most state fairs, at Minnesota's you can make a meal (or even more) out of things served on a stick. There are your corn dogs, of course, as well as drumsticks, cotton candy, and popsicles. You can even get bacon-and-cheddar mashed potatoes on a stick.

But this year, as Minnesota Public Radio reports, there's something new being served up vertical: camel.

"It's the food of kings," Jamal Hashi tells MPR. A native Somali, Hashi runs Safari Express, a food stand in Minneapolis, but he's currently manning the eatery's outpost in the International Bazaar section of the fair.

Served kebab-style, Hashi's camel tastes a lot like bison, he says. "It's a very, very lean meat...it's high in protein, and it doesn't have any of the gamey taste you would imagine from other game meats."