Sep. 09, 2009 - Issue #725: Sex in the City 2009
Belle Valley Farms
Not quite like beef: At its best--and worst--Alpaca meat has its own style
Michael Lutz, one of three brothers who raise alpacas on Belle Valley Farms, is out to change that thought. "Alpaca meat is really quite delicious. If I had to describe it, I would say the taste of it lies somewhere between beef and bison. A sweeter beef, I guess you could say."
Nutritionally, alpaca is similar to bison. It's a very lean meat that's high in protein and low in cholesterol. It's also extremely high in iron. "If you need to bump up your iron levels, eating alpaca is a good way to do it," explains Lutz. "It's almost the same as eating beef liver, just without having to endure the taste of liver."
Belle Valley Farms, in the cattle business since the late 1800s, decided to test out alpacas back in 1997. The original plan didn't include alpaca meat, however. They were more interested in the wool. But, after seven years of trying, things simply weren't working out. "The market just wasn't there. Sweaters made with alpaca wool cost too much."
Lutz and his brothers had 25 alpacas and no market for them. "I sat back, gazed out the window and watched the alpacas grazing. And I wondered, what now?
"Alpacas are animals, just like cows and pigs. And animals are meat." So Belle Valley Farms switched gears. Why not test out the market for alpaca meat? It has traditionally been eaten in Peru and South America, but it was a new concept for our part of the world.
There were no problems getting certified to sell alpaca meat. "As long as you go through the proper system, it's not a problem. You can even sell rabbit meat." The only requirements are that all meat needs to be provincially inspected—which means it has to be slaughtered in a registered slaughterhouse—and you need to have a food-handling permit.
The problem was (and still is) with us, the consumers. We seem to be a bit hesitant to give alpaca meat a try.
Lutz admits that raising alpacas for meat has had more than its share of challenges. In the beginning, the actual taste of the meat was one of those challenges. Its flavour and tenderness are highly dependent on what alpacas eat. So before they could sell the meat, they had to figure out what to feed the alpacas—and what not to feed them. That took time and involved more than a bit of trial and error.
"Over the first four years, our dogs were fed very well. We'd butcher an alpaca and, if we didn't like the taste, we'd feed it to the dogs. It was very expensive dog food. But it gave us an idea of what to do and what not to do."
They also began designing their own recipes that were suited to alpaca meat. Lutz's wife is from Brazil, so whenever they came back from visiting the country, they brought back cookbooks. The cookbooks didn't have recipes that used alpaca meat per se, but they did have recipes that used similar meat we're not used to eating here. They took some of those recipes and adapted them. "My mother-in-law is a great cook, and she really helped. She's just one of those people who can make something from practically nothing."
Not only does Belle Valley Farms offer traditional cuts of meat like steaks, roasts and ribs, but they've also developed their own pepperoni sticks, smokies and jerky.
When you try alpaca for the first time, Lutz recommends starting with the ground kind. "You can't really mess up ground alpaca. If you made something like a burger, it would give you the taste of the meat, but you can also throw it in a pot of chili."
Steaks are a bit more of a challenge. They need to be cooked quickly, and should never be done beyond rare to medium-rare. Alpaca is so lean that if it's overcooked, you end up with a very tough piece of meat. Marinating the steaks first also helps keep them tender. "But really, beef and bison are the same. They all get tough if you cook them too much."
Lutz describes the animals themselves as "easy to handle" and "kind to the land." Even though it takes five alpacas to get as much meat as one cow produces, they eat far less. Eight alpacas eat about as much as one steer. "If you put a bale of hay in front of 50 alpacas, it'll last about 3 weeks. Put a bale of hay in front of 50 steers and it's gone in less than a day."
Cattle, because of their hard hooves, do a pretty good job of tramping down the land. But alpacas don't really have hooves like cows do. Instead, they have pads at the bottom of their feet, which cause much less wear-and-tear on the land and the environment.
But raising alpacas isn't all good; they spit. That doesn't seem so bad, but evidently that spit doesn't just smell, it stinks. "It's a defence mechanism," laughs Lutz. "Skunks pee, and alpacas spit."
The spitting discovery was also part of the whole learning curve. "If you butcher alpacas at a certain age, you get a tinge of that smell in the meat. And trust me, even a tinge is too much." V
Belle Valley Farms
Michael, Wayne & Danny Lutz
RR#2, Morinville 780.939.2125
bellevalleyfarms.ca
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