Friday Food and Drink Post: ‘Meerkat Love’ Edition ❤️

 

Ahhh, “Meerkat Love.” Remember that hoary old song from the mid-1970s by that odd duo, Captain and Tennille? Yeah, I’m sorry to say that I remember it too. (A note to the unwary and to the Ricochet Editor-On-Duty: I know that’s not the actual title of the song, but close enough for gubmint work, and as a “hook” for the purpose of this post, I think.)

As for Captain and Tenille, I have no idea why Daryl Dragon was impersonating some sort of military officer (CPT? Capt? CAPT? Lord, please don’t let me get it wrong; I don’t want to get in trouble), when it appears that he came from a musical family, served no time in the armed services at all, and seems to have spent most of his life in one band after another, until landing Toni Tenille sometime in the early ’70s, and enjoying a pretty successful decade at the top of the pops. What? Oh. Nevermind. I am wrong. Apparently, “Captain” is an honorific, bestowed on him by Brian Wilson of Beach Boys fame, who called him “Captain Keyboard,” during his tenure with the group. Glad to have that sorted for myself, even at this late date. No stolen valor here. Not in a musical sense, anyway.

Back to the Meerkats. I’ve loved those little guys (and gals) for decades, ever since I saw a TV special about them, perhaps a National Geographic production, also probably in the 1970s or thereabouts. Even the origin of their name is fascinating. If it’s from the Dutch (which it may be, since the creatures’ range is largely southern Africa), then “meerkat” means “lake cat.” However, they’re not cats, and they inhabit the Kalahari and various other smaller deserts, so no water. “Mier” is an Afrikaans word meaning “termite”; therefore, “termite cats.” A bit closer, since 80 percent or so of their diets is composed of small insects, and they’re particularly fond of scavenging in termite mounds. But, still not cats. Then there’s the Sanskrit word which is written in the Roman alphabet as “merkata.”  That means “monkey.” But that isn’t right either. Meerkats are neither monkey nor cats, but are actually mongooses/mongeese. So who knows? As many such things go, probably a combination of all of the above, and of people doing their best to identify a strange mammal that reminds them in size and behavior of both cats and small monkeys, and which eats bugs.

Meerkats weigh only a few pounds, and adults are about 15 inches long excluding their muscular tail, which adds another ten to their length. They live in packs called mobs, usually of a few dozen animals, and three or four mobs will often share a range. They’re social and highly interactive, although with a rigid social structure that limits reproduction to the dominant pair in the mob, and which results in adult death and infanticide, as adults jockey for position to enjoy the top spot, removing those who challenge them, and as any babies born to non-dominant females (who apparently haven’t heard about the pill) are rejected and either killed outright or left to die.

That’s the less charming aspect of their behavior. (We all have one. And some of us have more than one.) What we see on the “family-friendly” documentaries though are the lovely little creatures caring for each other, with both males and females babysitting the mob’s young. One after another takes turns to assume the characteristic “sentinel” pose, keeping watch over their fellow mobsters as they forage for food, and alerting them to predators.

They’re intriguing little animals. Some research indicates that their vicious strictures on, and control of, mob reproduction reduces inbreeding and keeps the genetic stock strong. Males and females who wish to become dominant generally have to leave the birth mob, find another (unrelated) one, and win the top spot there. Studies of the sentries watching over the group have revealed that meerkats have different “alarm” signals for airborne and terrestrial predators, and that their chirping and trilling escalates according to the urgency of the threat. There’s an organized and pre-determined response, based on the nature and threat level, and very often, all are kept safe.

Young meerkats are tended, not only by their parents, but also by submissive females who can lactate without gestating, and who feed them; and they are watched over by non-dominant males. The young are taught to hunt, and since scorpions are occasionally on the menu, they are taught how to kill them, when the adults bring live scorpions into the burrow for the kids to practice on. (Interestingly, the adults bite off the tails of the scorpions first, so that the children will not be stung to death.)

Oy, She! I hear some of you yelling. Why have you gone Full David Attenborough on us? What on earth does this post have to do with food? Or love? Your point is–what, exactly?

My points, and I do have several, are these: 1) I have to work food into this post somehow before it gets away from me; 2) it’s Valentine’s Day; 3) I love animals; and 4) good works are important. So, a charity that combines food, and animals, and Valentine’s Day — winner! And as ever, bonus points for a sense of humor, particularly when it comes to affairs of the heart.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️  

Here we go:

El Paso Zoo will name a cockroach after your ex and feed it to their meerkats:

Not only can you name a cockroach after your ex at the El Paso Zoo, but on Valentine’s Day the zoo will be feeding those cockroaches to the meerkats for their “Quit Bugging Me” event at 2:15 p.m. Feb. 14.

You can submit the name of yours or your friend’s ex by sending a direct message to the El Paso Zoo Facebook page by Feb. 10. On Valentine’s Day, zoo staff will decorate the meerkat exhibit with the submitted names and shortly after, in honor of those names, the meerkats will be fed cockroaches.

“This is a fun way to get the community involved in our daily enrichment activities,” said El Paso Zoo Event Coordinator Sarah Borrego. “The meerkats love to get cockroaches as a snack and what better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by feeding them a cockroach named after your ex!”

The public is invited to attend the “Quit Bugging Me” event. The zoo will also show the event on Facebook Live and the meerkat webcam available on the zoo’s website www.elpasozoo.org.

The page where you can still, if you’re so minded, do the deed, is here: Quit Bugging Me.

And because we’re all globalists now:

The Helmsley Conservation Centre in the UK also gives you the opportunity to name a cockroach after your ex, although it’s unclear what they’ll do with it, other than that the first name of your former beloved will appear on the “Roach Board” on Valentine’s Day. Sounds good to me.

In addition, for those of you old enough to remember a Bronx Cheer, the Bronx Zoo gets in on the act, and promises to feed your named cockroach to an “animal” on, or just after the day. The San Antonio Zoo is starting its own Cry me a Cockroach program this year, which extends to other life forms, and which might give you the best value, since it incorporates thoughts of snakes, cockroaches, and reptiles all in one tidy little package — a triple whammy as it were.

A quick internet search will bring you to several similar endeavors, so please, have at it. Feed the beasties and help a good cause, while scoring some payback on them what done you wrong. Oh, and by the way, if you’re worried about feeding live creatures to the predators, don’t be. The sacrificial victims are already dead, and in fact, frozen. If you’re one of those women people who believes that “revenge is a dish best served cold,” this gives a new meaning to the phrase. (Why didn’t I think of that sooner, myself? Freezer? Duh.)

If, like me, you generally shy away from spilling your guts about too-intimate matters online, or if you can’t quite bring yourself to “out” your mistakes so obviously (my list is rather short, I assure you; I’ve led a sheltered and pretty blameless life, and I’ve been married for almost 40 of my 65 years), just send an animal charity of your choice a small donation to show the love, and call it quits all round.

Wow. I feel so much better with all that off my chest.

Now. The final point of the post.

Who, among us, has eaten bugs? Or other bizarre, revolting, or just plain distasteful foods?

Please share.

And in conclusion, a musical interlude. Happy Valentine’s Day to you and those you love:

.

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  1. She Member
    She
    @She

    Then there was poor old Henry I, who is reputed to have died from a surfeit of lampreys.  Although some people believe he died of food poisoning.  Me, I think it’s a distinction without all that much of a difference.

    • #31
  2. Juliana Member
    Juliana
    @Juliana

    I was waiting for the recipe for Meerkat Fricassee.

    • #32
  3. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    She (View Comment):

    Then there was poor old Henry I, who is reputed to have died from a surfeit of lampreys. Although some people believe he died of food poisoning. Me, I think it’s a distinction without all that much of a difference.

    I’ve never understood why people eat eels, especially lampreys and other really primitive eel-like critters like hagfish.  Blech!

    • #33
  4. Richard Finlay Inactive
    Richard Finlay
    @RichardFinlay

    She: Who, among us, has eaten bugs? Or other bizarre, revolting, or just plain distasteful foods?

    Well, cold C-rations fit the ‘revolting’ category occasionally and ‘distasteful’ almost always.  When a large quantity of expiring cans are combined into a stew, it can become ‘bizarre.’ (Here I should insert a link to an earlier comment somewhere else but I can’t remember which post and am too lazy complacent to investigate.)  Bugs? Almost certainly.  It’s hard to keep them out when you cook in the open, but who even cares under the relevant circumstances.

    Oh, and I think I had some fried crickets or grasshoppers or some such, maybe in Korea.  Tasted like ‘fried.’

    And then there is the time (while I was stationed in n Alaska) my then-girlfriend sent me some chocolate with embedded insects of various kinds.  I don’t think I ate any before I noticed them, but that may be a false memory generated for my own mental comfort.

    • #34
  5. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    My parents (Americans) lived a year in Baghdad, Iraq in the early 1950s while my father had a visiting professorship. As I heard the story, the local custom then was to serve to the guests of honor the eyeballs of the lamb that was being served at a banquet. At a dinner at which my parents were the guests of honor, the hosts did so. But fortunately for my parents, the hosts were already aware that Westerners (Americans and Western Europeans) were generally not keen on eating eyeballs, so the hosts did the presentation ceremonially, but did not expect my parents to eat them.

    Eyeballs are connected to the brain. Sheep, as well as deer and cows, have a prion problem, which appears to jump to humans who eat brain or eyes from these species. The resulting deaths are terrible and unstoppable.

    • #35
  6. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    She: Who, among us, has eaten bugs? Or other bizarre, revolting, or just plain distasteful foods?

    I should mention cilantro (coriander leaves and stems) and rooibos. I had rather eat the bugs, thank you.

    • #36
  7. She Member
    She
    @She

    Richard Finlay (View Comment):
    And then there is the time (while I was stationed in n Alaska) my then-girlfriend sent me some chocolate with embedded insects of various kinds. I don’t think I ate any before I noticed them, but that may be a false memory generated for my own mental comfort.

    False memories are tricky.  I’ve always enjoyed this essay by Oliver Sacks, the author of, among other things, the delightful The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, and one of the inspirations, in terms of his clinical experiences, for the movie Rainman.

    • #37
  8. She Member
    She
    @She

    Arahant (View Comment):

    She: Who, among us, has eaten bugs? Or other bizarre, revolting, or just plain distasteful foods?

    I should mention cilantro (coriander leaves and stems) and rooibos. I had rather eat the bugs, thank you.

    Yeah.  Rooibos is gruesome.  It makes Mr. She sneeze uncontrollably, so it’s off limits around here.  

    On that note, I find “non-tea” teas in general pretty unpleasant.  They often smell lovely, but once brewed, it’s like drinking hot water which has been steeped with dirty socks or soiled bandages.  I am quite pleased with a good peppermint infusion, but that’s about it.

     

    • #38
  9. She Member
    She
    @She

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    My parents (Americans) lived a year in Baghdad, Iraq in the early 1950s while my father had a visiting professorship. As I heard the story, the local custom then was to serve to the guests of honor the eyeballs of the lamb that was being served at a banquet. At a dinner at which my parents were the guests of honor, the hosts did so. But fortunately for my parents, the hosts were already aware that Westerners (Americans and Western Europeans) were generally not keen on eating eyeballs, so the hosts did the presentation ceremonially, but did not expect my parents to eat them.

    Eyeballs are connected to the brain. Sheep, as well as deer and cows, have a prion problem, which appears to jump to humans who eat brain or eyes from these species. The resulting deaths are terrible and unstoppable.

    I’m not sure that the disease can be communicated to humans directly from sheep.  My understanding was that it could pass to humans via cattle which had eaten feed contaminated with sheep product, when the sheep product was contaminated with the prion problem.

    It was a huge problem in the UK, which did not have as strict a regulatory approach to cattle feed as did the US.  But all of us raising sheep in the US were red-flagged by the “authorities.”  I’m pretty careful as a rule, and have a rather strict biosecurity program to make sure that “immigrant” sheep don’t jump the border wall onto my little farm without my permission and clearance.  (I visited the UK during the height of the “mad cow” problem.  And since my folks in the UK live in farm country, when I came back, I stripped before stepping onto my farm, and burned all my clothes.  Yeah.  I know, hard to unsee.  But ya gotta do what ya gotta do.)

    • #39
  10. She Member
    She
    @She

    OMG.  On the “I love animals” (which was one of my “points”) front–this link from boredpanda.com just might be the most delightful I’ve ever seen: 

    Physical education teacher Valtteri Mulkahainen from Sotkamo, Finland, has been devoting a lot of his free time to photography. For the past six years, Valtteri has been shooting his country’s wildlife and captured many magical moments. And this is a story about one of them.

    . . .

    “The cubs behaved like little children,” Valtteri told Bored Panda. “They were playing, and even started a few friendly fights. I felt like I was on a playground in front of my house, where small children frolic around. That’s how much they reminded me of little children. At one point, the three of them got up on their hind legs and started pushing each other. It was like they were dancing in a circle.”

    Here are two pics from the link.  Please check it out.  It’s wonderful:

    • #40
  11. Juliana Member
    Juliana
    @Juliana

    She (View Comment):

     

    . . .

    “The cubs behaved like little children,” Valtteri told Bored Panda. “They were playing, and even started a few friendly fights. I felt like I was on a playground in front of my house, where small children frolic around. That’s how much they reminded me of little children. At one point, the three of them got up on their hind legs and started pushing each other. It was like they were dancing in a circle.”

     

    My grandsons in bear suits?

    • #41
  12. Samuel Block Support
    Samuel Block
    @SamuelBlock

    This reminds me of “Meer sir my sir.” 

    10 points to Gryffindor if anyone catches the reference.

    • #42
  13. Locke On Member
    Locke On
    @LockeOn

    Re consuming insects:  While visiting the Japan Alps area, baby bees.  In Mexico City, maguey worm tacos.  Both in the course of business dinners, where there might have been a bit of testing of the visitor.  I had done my research in advance.  The former tasted rather like honey (duh!) and and I recall the latter was rather tasty and crunchy.

    Other somewhat off the beaten path cuisine:  Pickled jellyfish in Hong Kong, quite good and I wish I could find it locally (fat chance).  Squid (calimari) as a regular item in seafood, Italian or Japanese restaurants.  We  lived in Monterey for a few years and could buy it at the docks.  Octopus (tako) as sushi or as tako-yaki from Tokyo street vendors is quite good if prepared properly.

    • #43
  14. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Juliana (View Comment):
    My grandsons in bear suits?

    • #44
  15. KentForrester Coolidge
    KentForrester
    @KentForrester

    Mrs. She, I wish you hadn’t written about the scorpions.  I’m just about ready to go to bed, but all I’ll be thinking about are those poor scorpions who first have their stingers bitten off, rendering them defenseless, and then have their heads crushed by the teeth of a baby meerkat.

    You’ve made me pity the poor scorpions.

    • #45
  16. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    She: Ahhh, “Meerkat Love.” Remember that hoary old song from the mid-1970s by that odd duo, Captain and Tennille? Yeah, I’m sorry to say that I remember it too. (A note to the unwary and to the Ricochet Editor-On-Duty: I know that’s not the actual title of the song, but close enough for gubmint work, and as a “hook” for the purpose of this post, I think.)

    I saw them in concert in Portales, New Mexico probably in 1976.  Their songs were cutesy, but not particularly memorable, except that I saw them in concert.

    Toni Tenille’s Wikipedia page says that “The Captain’ was not particularly affectionate towards her despite their long marriage of 39 years.

    I really didn’t keep up with them after their television show got cancelled.  If anything, their television show turned me off of them.

    Toni Tenille was pretty good looking, though her talents couldn’t keep her in the big time.  The Captain was dead wood.

    • #46
  17. She Member
    She
    @She

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    Thanks to a traumatic childhood cuisine (my grandmother being a terrible cook, and a cheap cook, which combined to make her a terribly cheap terrible cook), my mother vowed to never inflict on us what was inflicted on her, though I’ve heard often of the fare. Apparently my grandmother’s favorite snack was pickled pigs’ feet (you can still find these in the right sort of grocery stores), but she would also regularly serve fried brains, souse, various types of blood puddings, tripe, mock-apple pies (made from Ritz crackers), and so forth. The one thing my mother did insist we try was cow’s tongue, but not boiled as she was so often served, but smoked, as available at a nearby Kosher grocery store. That was excellent, especially with a bit of mustard on some rye bread.

    My mother almost never cooked.  Her only real party piece, which she would occasionally rise to, was liver and onions (with bacon, in a thick gravy).  It was delicious.

    Dad’s family were butchers, and he loved cooking and was quite good with the meat and savories.  I never much liked “pigs trotters” myself, but we often had tongue in aspic, brawn (headcheese) and sundry delicacies in the fridge.  We did eat tripe as kids.  He’d also make old fashioned “pork pies” with raised pastry crusts.  The more modern ones have a better (that is, edible) crust.  Dad’s were of the traditional variety, where the crust was so thick and tough that it was virtually inedible (this appears, for some reason, to have been purposeful).  I can only speculate that this improved the ability to store it for long periods of time, or perhaps to transport it safely over bumpy roads.  The filling was great, though.

    We’d often have a ham curing in the garage.  And one year Dad did a pig’s head for a Hogmanay party (He had cultivated a local suburban butcher, who cooperated with him in getting the sometimes weird ingredients for some of his creations.  Funnily enough, years later, Mr. She and I moved into the area where those local butchers are just a couple of miles away.

     

    • #47
  18. She Member
    She
    @She

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Mrs. She, I wish you hadn’t written about the scorpions. I’m just about ready to go to bed, but all I’ll be thinking about are those poor scorpions who first have their stingers bitten off, rendering them defenseless, and then have their heads crushed by the teeth of a baby meerkat.

    You’ve made me pity the poor scorpions.

    Don’t.  They’re horrible creatures.  And they move fast too.  When I was a child in Nigeria, we had to put our slippers in the bed with us, under the mosquito netting, because if we left them on the floor overnight they’d be full of scorpions in the morning.

    Just think of the scorpion/meerkat encounter as “nature red in tooth and claw” or something.

    • #48
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