30/08/2022
Blue Babe is a 50,000 year old mummified steppe bison that was discovered by gold miners in 1979, north of Fairbanks, Alaska.
Claw and tooth marks on the rear of the bison indicate that it was killed by a North American lion, an extinct Ice Age cat that was 25% larger than the modern lion. The lion managed to open the bison carcass and eat most of its muscle located in the ribs and upper limbs area. However, the bison carcass froze quickly, making it difficult for scavengers to fully consume.
In 1984, a group of paleontologists decided to cook and eat part of the neck muscle of the bison carcass. Professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Alaska, R Dale Guthrie, wrote about the event:
“To climax and celebrate [taxidermist] Eirik Granqvist’s work with Blue Babe, we had a bison stew dinner for him and for Bjorn Kurten … A small part of the mummy’s neck was diced and simmered in a pot of stock and vegetables. We had Blue Babe for dinner. The meat was well aged but still a little tough, and it gave the stew a strong Pleistocene aroma, but nobody there would have dared miss it.
The meat in its abdomen had spoiled before the bison was completely frozen. But in the neck area small pieces of meat were found attached to the skull. The lions had left so little there that it had frozen through while the meat was still fresh. When it thawed it gave off an unmistakable beef aroma, not unpleasantly mixed with a faint smell of the earth in which it was found, with a touch of mushroom. About a dozen of us gathered .... on April 6, 1984, to partake of Bison priscus stew. The taste was delicious, and none of us suffered any ill effects from the meal.”
Source: “Food History Almanac: Over 1,300 Years of World Culinary History, Culture, and Social Influence” by Janet Clarkson
