New York cracks down on mystery meats

updated 12:01 p.m. ET Dec. 2, 2006

NEW YORK - When a food safety inspector walked into a market in Queens, he noticed the store had an interesting special posted on its front window: 12 beefy armadillos.

In Brooklyn, inspectors found 15 pounds of iguana meat at a West Indian market and 200 pounds of cow lungs for sale at another market.

At a West African grocery in Manhattan, the store was selling smoked rodent meat from a refrigerated display case. An inspector quickly seized a couple pounds of it.

All of it was headed for the dinner table. All of it was also illegal.

Authorities say the discoveries are part of a larger trend in which markets across New York are buying meat and other foods from unregulated sources and selling them to an immigrant population accustomed to more exotic fare.

State regulators have responded by stepping up enforcement, confiscating 65 percent more food through September than they did in all of 2005.

The seizures also cast a spotlight on the eating habits of this ethnically diverse city, where everything from turtles and fish paste to frogs and duck feet make their way onto people's plates.

"At one time or another, we've probably seen about everything," said Joseph Corby, director of the state's Division of Food Safety and Inspection.

In an attempt to stamp out the activity, Corby's agency has ramped up efforts, working with the Food and Drug Administration, to prevent this illicit food from reaching store shelves.

Focusing on the source
Instead of just hitting the retailers, Corby said, his inspectors are also targeting warehouses that receive imported products — Russian, Asian and African — from where the food is distributed.

So far, it appears his campaign has been effective. In the first nine months of the year, inspectors across the state seized 1.6 million pounds of food, destroying about 81 percent of it. Last year, the state seized only 976,076 pounds of food.

Food taken by the Corby's inspectors lacked proper labeling or didn't come from a government-licensed or inspected source. Other food was destroyed because of the way it was processed or prepared, like chicken smoked in the home and placed on sale.

Such food can spread nasty bacteria like salmonella or botulinum.

The rules vary from animal to animal.

Bush meat, or anything killed in the wild, is typically illegal, Corby said. Eating endangered or threatened species like gorilla and chimpanzee — whose meat is occasionally found in New York — is against the law.

But turtles, frogs, iguana and armadillos can be eaten under one condition: The meat must come from a licensed and inspected facility. "We have yet to find too many of these places," Corby said.

In a city filled with clusters of people hailing from all over the world, these rules can get lost in translation.

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