Fried River Otter Stew Meat

The North American river otter is an animal I've never seen in the wild and an animal I never expected to be able to eat.

So when I saw that otter meat was available from Exotic Meat Markets, I had to order it. I included it in a wild game dinner which included bobcat, coyote and beaver tail. What otters eat is significantly different than what most other mammals eat. The otters diet consists mostly of fish, amphibians, turtles and crayfish. I ordered a pound of stew meat 

and decided to prepare and cook it in the same way as the bobcat stew meat: I put it in a fry pan with some canola oil, salt and pepper. The otter cooked as though it had been coated with something, 

I'm not sure what it was. It almost seemed like gravy. The taste was quite strong. It wasn't really livery, and it wasn't the typical gamy taste I associate with venison. The only thing I've tasted that was comparable was seal meat, which we ate at Au Cinquieme Peche in Montreal. The seal meat was also very dark and the seal diet is comparable at least to the extent that it consists primarily of fish. The contrast between the bobcat and otter meat could not have been much greater. The raw bobcat meat was quite a bit lighter, and it cooked substantially lighter. The raw otter looked saturated with blood, almost a liver look. The cooked bobcat was very mild, the ubiquitous chicken might be the best comparison. As I indicated earlier, the otter is quite strong. 

It was not a bad taste, but it is a meat I think I would need to eat a bit of occasionally to develop a taste for it. I took some to work and found that some people who were willing to eat coyote refused to eat the otter. For anyone who enjoys trying new foods, otter is something I recommend trying.