TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST: EATING GOAT

by Grant McGee

            Thirty years ago, before I made my journey to The Great American Southwest, if someone had told me, “you will eat things made with fresh tomatoes, have green chile brownies and eat goat,” I would have had a good laugh.

            You should know I wasn’t a fan of fresh tomatoes, had no concept of green chile and didn’t know people ate goat.  I knew they were good for milk, feta cheese, trimming trees and butting you if you got in their space.

            Now I love salsa whether it’s fresh or from a jar.  I can’t imagine a grocery store without green chile (though there are plenty of them in Amarillo).  However, goat is not something I’ll be putting in my slow cooker anytime soon.

            I got to thinking about eating goat on a recent trip to Roswell.  The Lady of the House remembered one of the grocery stores there sold frozen rabbit.  The meat man pointed to where the frozen rabbit was usually stored.  There wasn’t any rabbit but there were some frozen cuts of goat.

            I remember the first time I learned of the epicurean delights of eating goat.

            I was a country music DJ in Roswell.  One of my listeners invited me to his house to have some barbecue and cervezas.

            Upon arriving at “Mountain Man’s” mobile home on the south side of Roswell he shoved a cold one in my hand.

            “Want something to keep it cold?”

            I barely had time to think.

            “Here, stick the can in THIS.”

            Mountain Man handed me this fur covered thing to keep my cerveza cool, also known as a “coozie.”  Most of the time they’re made out of foam.  This one was not.

            Now, there are some moments we remember all of our lives and there are other moments we remember more than others.  This moment was one of the latter.

            I held the fur covered thing in my hand.

            “Know what that is?”

            “I have no idea,” I said.

            Then he told me.

            “That’s a goat scrotum coozie,” he said with pride.

            I turned the thing around and around in my hand.

            I held it up to my nose and had a whiff.

            Gamey.

            Goat gamey.

            Mountain Man raised goats for sale to folks around Roswell who enjoyed the meat.  Goat heads were perched on many of his fence posts.  Goats and their kids played in a nearby pen.  It was a surreal scene.

            A fancy, big-city writer might opine, “It was a scene juxtaposing life and death in close quarters.”

            I’ll just say it was surreal.

            “I get $150 a goat,” he said with pride.  “I think I’m gonna start sellin’ them goat scrotum cozies at the flea market too, make some extra coin.”

            I just smiled, nodded in agreement and had a swig of beer as that goat gamey-ness wafted up to my nostrils.

            The next day I told my buddy Kent I had sat down to a meal of smoked goat with Mountain Man, his wife “Nighthawk,” and their son “Snake Boy.”

            Kent looked at me for a moment.

            “Where DO you meet these people.”

            I can’t say much about my first taste of goat.  It was smoked and kind of gamey.  It was okay.

            Mountain Man obviously thought I enjoyed the goat because he dropped by the radio station next week with a crock pot full of goat soup.

            It was seriously gamey, greasy stuff.

            I politely had a few spoonfuls, smiled, said “thank you” and he was on his way.  The boss came in a bit later and wanted to know what the hell was stinking up the building I told him about the soup.  He snatched up the pot, trotted out the back door and dumped the contents a good distance out in a nearby field.

            The next time I had goat was at a party in Loco Hills, New Mexico.  My buddy Wayne and I were providing the music for the get together.  We were invited to eat.  Along with the green beans prepared with strips of jalapeno and other tasty dishes was cabrito, that’s Spanish for baby goat, that had been roasting in a pit all day.

            I told the host about my previous experience with goat soup.

            “Oh no,” he said, “he must’ve cooked up an older goat.  Cabrito is a young one, a kid.”

            I hadn’t tasted roasted meat that good in years.

            The first time I ran into goat being sold in a restaurant was during my truck driving travels.  It was a restaurant in Pomona, California, a little place near the company terminal.  I always tried to eat at places that might offer some local flavor, like the time I had some great Cuban food in Miami:  fried plantains with black beans.  Anyway, this California eatery had birras on the menu.  I inquired as to what that was.

            “Goat,” said the man behind the counter.  “Very good.  You want salsa with that?”

            So it was sometime in late 2002 I had my very first goat burrito.  Every time my travels took me back there I had some more.

            I try to remain open to new gustatory experiences.  It’s how I ended up eating some kind of braided, chewy meat at a Sinaloan party. 

I found out later that was roasted cow or pig intestine.

But that’s another story.

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