Day 251

Alligator Bob's Smoked Alligator Stick: Today's new food might not seem all that unusual, since most of us have had the ubiquitous "Slim Jim" beef jerky more than once in our lives. However, this one featured an ingredient that was brand new to me: alligator. My friend's parents included this in their bag of treats that they gave me last weekend, which they accumulated during their travels over the past few months. This one procured in Florida may not be as strange as some of the Asian foods they found for me, but I was excited just the same to find out if gator tasted "just like chicken."

This gator stick was about a foot long and packaged in a sealed plastic tube, just like any standard beef jerky stick. I opened the plastic and sliced off a piece, and I couldn't tell any real difference appearance-wise. My first bite didn't really offer any new flavors, and it had the same salty, greasy goodness that any typical convenience-store beef jerky offers. I wish I could report something new, but if put in a blind taste test, I doubt I could find any differences between gator and beef (in stick form, that is).

I'm still curious about finding out what unadulterated gator tastes like, so maybe I'll encounter it in my travels soon. I doubt any restaurants in Atlanta are serving it up, but I guess I could always be surprised and find it somewhere here.