New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
1943 - Tastes Like Chicken?

"Delicious as the breast of chicken" - and so filet of alligators, thus designated, finds its way to New Orleans tables today to relieve the meat shortage.

Time was when the alligator merely furnised ideas for teh cartoonist and a hide for luggage but those days have gone, though perhaps not forever.

Reports from Ben Monteleone, manager of a fish market in New Orleans indicated that alligator steak is finding favore with Mme. Orleans.

"We buy alligators from the swamp trappers who bring or send them to the city," he said. "We clean and prepare them carefully and the mean, when fried, is as delicious as the breast of chicken."

The demand usually exceeds the supply, he said, possibly because no ration stamps are necessary. The flesh is taken from the side and tail of the saurian, he explained, and cut into small steaks.

The market also features gar-fish, thought by some to be a sort of second cousin to the alligator and turtles.

"We sell a good eadl of turtles, alive, at 15 and 20 cents each." Monteleone said, "Some are of the 'soft-shell' kind and some of the 'snapping' variety. Either makes acceptable meat substitues - if you like them."

Toledo Blade
Toledo, Ohio
July 20, 1943

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