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"  It&amp;#039;s not often that politicians admit mistakes, but the New York State Legislature \u2014 along with Gov. David Patterson \u2014 recently overturned a ban on kangaroo meat. The State Department of Environmental Conservation had listed the marsupials as endangered, even though only one obscure variety \u2014 the Tasmanian Forester \u2014 required such protection. (For chrissakes, even Greenpeace endorses dining on macropods, which &amp;quot;do not emit greenhouse gases.&amp;quot;) And while certain Serbians devour kangaroo testicles, New Yorkers can enjoy filets at SoHo restaurant Eight Mile Creek. We spoke to co-owner Andrew Jordan, a genuine kangaroo-eating Aussie, who predicts that you&amp;#039;ll be hopping with joy. ESQUIRE: What should we expect before taking our first bite of kangaroo? ANDREW JORDAN: People in America expect it to taste like game meat, like buffalo or moose, but it tastes just like sweet filet mignon. Kangaroo is very lean; there&amp;#039;s no fat on it at all. It&amp;#039;s been nouvelle cuisine for 40,000 years, which is how long the Aborigines have been eating kangaroo. We cook it medium rare to medium \u2014 any hotter any it gets too dry and stringy, and loses all its flavor. We serve it either as skewers ($10) with a really nice mountain berry sauce, or as a six-ounce loin ($29) with a sweet potato and rosemary-infused mash and a shiraz jus that takes about two days to put together. ESQ: So it&amp;#039;s imported from Australia? Or do you have an &amp;quot;arrangement&amp;quot; with the Bronx Zoo? AJ: It comes vacuum-sealed from Australia, and certainly doesn&amp;#039;t taste frozen or freezer-burned. Kangaroo meat isn&amp;#039;t from animals in captivity; it&amp;#039;s completely organic, free range \u2014 not farms. They&amp;#039;re culled every year by professional kangaroo shooters who shoot &amp;#039;em in the head, which is very humane because the animals are dead before they hit the ground. They don&amp;#039;t even know what&amp;#039;s happening. ESQ: What exactly happened with your legal battle? AJ: We were serving kangaroo for a while and didn&amp;#039;t know it was illegal in New York. We weren&amp;#039;t trying to stir up a controversy with the Environmental Protection Agency, which said they were on the endangered species list. We had a good laugh \u2014 all 60 million of them are endangered? It&amp;#039;s crazy but it was the law. We have an overabundance in Australia \u2014 an infinitesimal amount winds up on a dinner plate \u2014 so really it&amp;#039;s good for the species to cook them. Our lawyer is a guy named Jack \u2014 so I named him &amp;quot;Kangaroo Jack&amp;quot; \u2014 and he sent a letter to the State Legislature, suggesting a modification that allowed for Eastern Grays or Red Kangaroos, since nobody eats the endangered Tasmanian ones. We never thought we&amp;#039;d get it changed, but it only took six months. ESQ: How common is kangaroo meat in your homeland? AJ: In Australia it&amp;#039;s still avant-garde \u2014 we mostly eat chicken, beef and fish like everyone else \u2014 but there&amp;#039;s a new group of people who are vegetarians but only eat kangaroo because it&amp;#039;s so healthy; they&amp;#039;re called &amp;quot;kangatarians.&amp;quot; ESQ: Is there, like, kangaroo veal? AJ: We cook the babies in coconut water \u2014 just kidding. They&amp;#039;re adults, at least eight months old. You should try them with red wine. ESQ: What other Aussie foods should we try? AJ: Barramundi fish is fantastic; it&amp;#039;s the dominant fish in Australia. It&amp;#039;s white meat, not flaky. They grow in the northern parts, in the brackish water where the ocean meets the sea. I&amp;#039;m not a fan of river fish, which is usually a bit dingy, but they taste like ocean fish. ESQ: You could&amp;#039;ve just said, &amp;quot;Anything at Outback Steakhouse.&amp;quot; AJ: I went in there the other day actually \u2014 it&amp;#039;s a chain restaurant but it&amp;#039;s good food. I have nothing bad to say about it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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