Late on Wednesday night, I heard a knock at my door accompanied by a polite request of “bogi” [pronounced BON-ghee; meaning “good evening”]. I came to the door to find my neighbor with a big smile and holding a loose bundle of dark and light fur attached to some leathery wings. It was a fruit bat.
South Pacific (Insular) fruit bats (Pteropus tonganus) are the only indigenous mammal in Fiji and often the largest flying creatures found on many South Pacific islands. The largest reach 40 centimetres (16 in) in length and attain a wingspan of 150 centimetres (4.9 ft), weighing in at nearly 1 kilogram (2.2 lb). Fruit bats, as their name suggests, feed solely on the abundant fruit that grows in the jungle canopy…and in the trees around people’s homes. For the last two months we have watched and listened to fruit bats swooping into the breadfruit trees surrounding our house at nightfall and proceeding to fight noisily over the ripe breadfruit. They sound dreadful; screeching and squealing in a way that invokes visions of Vlad the Impaler. Even worse, as they move through the trees in the twilight, they look like something only H.R. Giger might imagine as their shadowy, leathery wings tipped with claws reach from branch to branch. Then again, they really amount to nothing more than a Chihuahua with wings (although that vision is actually far more disturbing to me than one of a blood sucking minion of Count Dracula).
Anyhow, Mere, our neighbor, said “kana beka” [roughly “eat bat”] and motioned for me to take the bat, so I thanked her and took what is often the largest flying animal in the sky, save the occasional frigate bird or heron, into our house for closer inspection. This particular bat was not exceedingly large, being a juvenile that was only about ¾ of a pound even if its wingspan was over 2 ½ feet. So then I thought, “now what?”
I’ve dressed a lot of animals in my time ranging from things as mundane as rabbits to those as exotic as an alligator, but I’ve never field dressed anything remotely as strange as a bat. I wasn’t sure where to even start. Luckily, my Fijian friend Elima Rabuli stopped by to drop some things off after Mere left. I told him I had a bat and he looked at me in amazement, almost with a sense of pride. “No, I did not kill the bat.” I told him, “Mere brought it to me.” He looked disappointed that I had not killed it, but was no doubt impressed that I even planned to eat it.
Elima is a local expert on bats; how to get them, dress them, and cook them. I’m sure some of you are asking yourself, “How, exactly, do they get these creatures.” Well, let me tell you, in a country where nobody owns firearms, you would be impressed. I have personally seen Elima cut about a 2 foot long stick from one of the dense local hardwoods using a cane knife, then take that same stick and wing it with unimaginable speed and accuracy to take out a bat in mid flight about 35 yards away. I have a friend named Brad Tyler in Texas that would probably miss that same shot using a 10-gauge shotgun fitted with a skeet choke and loaded with 3 ½ inch #6 shot maximum loads and this Fijian guy has better aim and killing efficiency with a stick! Nonetheless, knocking them out of the air is only the first step.
Elima explained that there are basically two ways that Fijians clean and cook bat. The first involves putting the bat in boiling water…fur and guts and all…and boiling the bat until everything is soft. This method was simply not an option for me. No matter how adventurous an eater I like to think I am, I don’t ever intend to eat the anus or feces of any animal…unless, of course, it is mixed in as part of bologna or hot dog weiners (you did know they use every part of the cow/pig making those, right?). Even worse, there were these mites that looked just like spiders that would crawl about the thin, soft fur when you disturbed it…and spiders were definitely not on the menu. The second option was to skin and gut the bat and then either fry or roast it. That sounded much more appealing, especially since removing the skin would simultaneously remove the fur and, ergo, the gross little mites. Not to mention the fur harbored the musky stink that falls somewhere between ferret and skunk. Thus, I asked Elima for instructions on how to skin the bat. Of course, I had to insist that I wanted to do it on my own or, in Fijian tradition, I would’ve been the confused valagi standing there and watching the Fijian do everything.
Elima is a local expert on bats; how to get them, dress them, and cook them. I’m sure some of you are asking yourself, “How, exactly, do they get these creatures.” Well, let me tell you, in a country where nobody owns firearms, you would be impressed. I have personally seen Elima cut about a 2 foot long stick from one of the dense local hardwoods using a cane knife, then take that same stick and wing it with unimaginable speed and accuracy to take out a bat in mid flight about 35 yards away. I have a friend named Brad Tyler in Texas that would probably miss that same shot using a 10-gauge shotgun fitted with a skeet choke and loaded with 3 ½ inch #6 shot maximum loads and this Fijian guy has better aim and killing efficiency with a stick! Nonetheless, knocking them out of the air is only the first step.
Elima explained that there are basically two ways that Fijians clean and cook bat. The first involves putting the bat in boiling water…fur and guts and all…and boiling the bat until everything is soft. This method was simply not an option for me. No matter how adventurous an eater I like to think I am, I don’t ever intend to eat the anus or feces of any animal…unless, of course, it is mixed in as part of bologna or hot dog weiners (you did know they use every part of the cow/pig making those, right?). Even worse, there were these mites that looked just like spiders that would crawl about the thin, soft fur when you disturbed it…and spiders were definitely not on the menu. The second option was to skin and gut the bat and then either fry or roast it. That sounded much more appealing, especially since removing the skin would simultaneously remove the fur and, ergo, the gross little mites. Not to mention the fur harbored the musky stink that falls somewhere between ferret and skunk. Thus, I asked Elima for instructions on how to skin the bat. Of course, I had to insist that I wanted to do it on my own or, in Fijian tradition, I would’ve been the confused valagi standing there and watching the Fijian do everything.
After Elima gave me basic instructions and went home to take care of his own family, I preceded to skin and gut this bat in our kitchen. Now some of you might be thinking, “How in the world would Michelle ever allow something like this in her kitchen?!” Well, first of all, she’s actually intrigued by these bats and was interested in seeing one up close. Secondly, and most importantly, however, she was out of the village when all this transpired. Anyhow, I made the incision up the back of the bat from the tail to the head and cut the collars around the first joints of the “arms” and legs. With one moderate pull the skin of the bat came off rather easily, leaving a pinkish body and head that looked like something straight out of Stephen King’s imagination.
Surprisingly, the guts were easily removed as well…and did not smell all that bad. I guess when all you eat is fruit things can’t get too terribly stinky. However, after cleaning the gut cavity I decided that leaving the head on was a little more than I could bear, so I cut the head off as well. Don’t worry, none of it went to waste! The kitten was more than happy to take it off my hands as he thought it was simply delectable!
After washing the bat well inside and out, I seasoned it using a combination of spices and positioned it as one would a chicken or turkey on top of a bed of cabbage, carrots, garlic, and onion in a small roasting pan. I also made sure to insert garlic and onion into the body cavity. I then proceeded to roast the bat and vegetable ensemble in a makeshift stovetop oven for about 1 ½ hours. It smelled as good as anything else we might cook in the same manner. Later, I turned off the heat, let it cool, and then carefully removed some of the vegetables and gently placed the bat on top for the proper presentation. And it was…
…ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! Once you got past the fact it was bat, it really did have a very nice texture and flavor something like rabbit or quail (I will NOT compare it to chicken, which is the least descriptive way you can ever describe a cooked meat!). Moreover, it tasted far better than most wild game we Americans spend millions on chasing and shooting only to wrap it in piles of bacon, breading, and strong spices trying to make it not taste like strong cow’s liver. In any event, it turns out the Fijians were right when they told me that bat was one of the “finest meats in Fiji.”
So I’m sure that some of you cringed and squirmed, maybe even gasped and grimaced at the thought of eating a bat, but this is part of the Fijian culture and a mundane experience for most Fijians – as common as you eating a hamburger. But before you judge, my western friends, remember that many of you eat ground up unidentifiable meat paste (including lips, noses, bone, and, yes, assholes – not to mention stabilizers, preservatives, and an FDA limit for rat feces) molded into cylindrical shapes and then either boiled, grilled, or roasted on sticks as a ritual celebration of our nation’s independence every year or, at least, at ball games and backyard barbecues.
