WINNIPEG – It took a big screen to introduce a big bird to the upper-crust of the food industry in Winnipeg recently.
Manitoba ostrich farmers left nothing to the imagination when flying their flightless bird past this crowd. They rented the Imax theatre, with its five-and-a-half-storey screen, to show off the fuzzy, long-necked ratites.
There was no buttered popcorn for these palates. Only the four best restaurants in the city would do, serving up the most extravagant of entrŽes at the gala promotion.
The longest line was for the Velvet Glove, with chefs searing medallions of ostrich on potato crisp with a leek-fennel compote, served with essence of cassis. It’s otherwise known as sauce with a hint of black current.
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Warren Levigne, a chef with Le Beaujolais, said it was his first time working with the “interesting” meat, and he enjoyed it. “It lends itself very much towards an acidic type of sauce. It seems to enhance the flavor,” he observed.
Levigne created a bed of garlic-basil mashed potatoes with grilled portobello mushrooms for his ostrich medallions, topped with a sweet and sour balsamic vinegar glaze with rosemary and thyme.
Manitoba Ostrich Association vice-president Melanie Rennie compared it to fine cuts of beef and bison, or lobster.
“It’s not out in left field any more, and as we grow, our price will become more and more competitive.”
While $26 per pound for tenderloin is pricey for most pocketbooks, Reed Wolfe of Prime Ostrich Products said his company sells other cuts for less than $20 per lb.
During December, the restaurants at the promotion will have the meat on their menus. Prime Ostrich, owned by a group of farmers in Manitoba, Alberta and B.C., is giving it to them at a discount to help with promotions.
Craig Murphy, president of the Manitoba Ostrich Association, said the group wanted to plan a first-class event because “initially, that’s where the bird is going to be served, in higher-end restaurants.”
To Levigne, it’s a smart deal. “They’re doing it right by using some of the nicer restaurants in the city because they’re going to have qualified chefs who are going to understand the product … and be a bit more innovative in what they’re doing.”
Away from the every day
Just outside Winnipeg in St. Francois Xavier, the Medicine Rock Cafe has been featuring ostrich on its menu every two months for about two years. “It’s something unique,” said owner Peggy Van Eslander. “People are always looking for the unusual.”
The cafe will be serving ostrich in several ways this month, including a roast with cappalini pasta served in an ostrich half-shell, with huckleberry sauce, for $19.95.
“It really is very delicious,” Van Eslander said. “It’s a little sweeter than beef. It has the density of a wild meat but the tenderness of beef without all the fats and extras.”
Wolfe, who has been raising and eating the birds for nine years, said the exotic smells wafting through the Imax theatre were a bit different from the roasts and stir-fries cooked in his home.
“We’re not as fancy as the chefs,” he laughed, while slicing some jerky for the crowd to taste. “We’re not in their league, I guess.”
