FOOD FRIDAY

Meat and right

Indignity Vol. 5, No. 149

Tom Scocca, JOE MACLEOD

20 Aug 2025 — 7 min read

FOOD WEDNESDAY DEP'T.

Food Wednesday: Biltong Paradise Safari Sticks

THE RANGERS WHO led us on foot into the bush of Kruger National Park were obviously extremely competent: sharp-eyed, showing excellent muzzle discipline with their rifles, laconic but informative. They could point out the difference between male and female elephant bodily waste (the males deliver the urine further away from the droppings) and the way rhinoceros teeth had neatly snipped a twig on its way to ending up in a mat of rhinoceros dung.

But the midwalk snack was its own display of mastery. On a flattened paper bag on a dry bank, the rangers laid out an arbitrary-seeming assortment of items: peanuts, crackers, litchi juice boxes, prunes, individually wrapped slices of American cheese, a bag of Biltong Paradise Safari Sticks. Together, the offerings achieved a real harmony, the work of people who had thought carefully and acutely about how to get the most out of limited snack purchases. The crisp crackers—the name was Salticrax—were perfect with the pliable, shiny cheese; the peanuts and the prunes allowed for alternating crunch with softness, savory with sweet.

And then there was the biltong, the air-dried meat, the pride of South Africa. We'd been eyeing the biltong on our trip—there was a biltong counter in the tidy little thatched-roofed airport we'd flown into on our way to the park—but we hadn't gotten around to eating any yet. Now here it was, for the complete safari experience.

The Safari Sticks were tough and richly meaty as they rehydrated in the mouth. I had a vague understanding that the people who care about biltong make a big deal about it not being the same thing as jerky—jerky is cooked, and biltong is not—but these really were something else. The Safari Sticks were made of beef, but they didn't taste at all like beef jerky, or really quite like any other preparation of beef I'd had before. I sampled the whole array of snacks, but I really dug into the Safari Sticks.

Later on, my younger son and I grabbed a bag of our own at the shop near the hotel, along with a bag of Biltong Paradise dried sausage made from blue wildebeest. The wildebeest tasted reasonably like some kind of Slim Jim, but the Safari Sticks still just tasted like Safari Sticks. We brought them along on the afternoon game drive and snacked on them as we rode.

With the Safari Sticks, the all-important element of dissatisfaction was their variability. One Safari Stick might splinter and come apart almost airily in the mouth; the next might grudgingly and gradually shrink and soften down to something like a wad of worn-out chewing gum. There might be a metaphor for the hit-or-miss nature of the safari experience itself in there, but we had good luck with the animals every time out. And we had our Safari Sticks.

For livestock health reasons, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement prohibits bringing meat products like biltong into the country from South Africa, even as innocuous packaged snacks for personal consumption or gifts, even if you are going nowhere near an American agricultural region. This is the law even though no one hands out customs declaration forms on flights anymore, and even if the Department of Homeland Security is so focused on ethnic-cleansing immigrants from the country that there is barely a human officer, let alone a meat-sniffing beagle, to be seen in the wide-open space designated as the customs entry point at Newark Airport.

Because that is the law, I have no way of knowing whether our cat, who disdains most kinds of treats, would have found the smell of biltong so compelling she would have dragged a sealed package of Safari Sticks out of the closet, chewed on the plastic—the cat does love chewing on plastic—and eventually broken through to drag out one of those Safari Sticks for herself. It would not have been possible, under the law, for such a thing to happen. Likewise my only reference point for writing about the Safari Sticks, legally, would be the memory of my now-concluded travels, so there is no way, as I write this, that my jaw muscles would be a little bit sore.

BUY INDIGNITY A BOX OF TOOTHPICKS

WEATHER REVIEWS

New York City, August 19, 2025

★★★★★ An upper-story balcony door stood open behind a railing lined with flowering plants. The sun was out, the air felt cool and smelled clean. The ivy in the treebox was a lush and multilayered jungle. Light sang like a struck wineglass. People were out as if it were a Sunday: riding scooters, sitting around a sidewalk card table on camp chairs. Music played from car windows and portable speakers. Downtown, the sheets of cloud were softly mottled, while overhead they spread apart, crisply reticulated with blue. They flowed past the rooflines faster than the natural parallactic effect of walking, bringing on the floating sensation that the Broadway sidewalk had become a moving walkway.

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.

HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast!

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ADVICE DEP'T.

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SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.

WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of sandwiches selected from 365 Orange Recipes: An Orange Recipe for Every Day of the Year, published by George W. Jacobs & Company in 1909, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.

Sardine and Orange Sandwiches.

Mince 1 pickled orange very fine, rub the yolks of 2 hard-boiled eggs through a sieve and mince the whites, free 1 large box of sardines from skin and bones and add to the orange and eggs with oil or melted butter to make of a consistency to spread. Have thin slices of whole wheat bread spread with butter, spread 1/2 with the sardine mixture and cover with buttered bread.

Orange Pickles.

Make deep gashes in 24 small, sour oranges, rub them with table-salt and let stand three days. Boil enough white-wine vinegar to cover the oranges with 1 teaspoonful of mace blades, pour over the oranges, and add 1/2 cupful of coriander seeds. For three successive days pour off the vinegar, bring to a boil and pour over the oranges again; then seal and let stand for three months.

CHIP IN A COUPLA BUCKS SO INDIGNITY CAN BUY A RHYMING DICTIONARY

If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net .