You know how people compare Mitch McConnell with a turtle?

[cab67]

42. crocodylians taste like what they're fed.

In general, the ancestral flavor for tetrapods is "chicken." Know how they say frog legs taste like chicken? And turtle, iguana, and snake? There's something to that.

That said - farmed alligators in the US are fed a kibble based on nutria from the fur industry, chicken, and fish. Nutria don't have a strong flavor (though I can say from direct experience that their close relative, mara, is delicious). So they taste like fishy chicken. Or chickeny fish.

The Morelet's crocodile I ate in Mexico in 2021 was the same way. So has the Nile crocodile I've eaten in Kenya several times

But the Nile crocodile I ate in Namibia? Straight-up fish. That's all they fed the crocodiles.

Most of what's eaten is from around the base of the tail, and it's served as fried nuggets. I did eat a hamburger made from ground Morelet's crocodile, and it was really good, but that's not the usual presentation.

A number of years ago - and this is true - I ordered some "alligator legs" for a party I was throwing for my lab group. I marinaded them in milk and cumin, then broiled them in wing sauce. They were really good, but it soon occurred to me why these "legs" came in two discrete size classes - half of the "legs" were forelimbs. I bit into one, and realized I'd bitten on a humerus rather than a femur. The animals were all about the same size at the time of slaughter, but the forelimb is consistently shorter than the hindlimb.