Wanna iguana?

Chez King is home to a pretty meatless kitchen. We aren't strict vegetarians but we enjoy our vegetables more than we enjoy muscle-based foods or organ meats (sweet breads, chitlins and such). One member of this household (not your humble narrator) is German (eine Deutcshe) who thinks of meat in her native language as das fleisch (flesh). You couldn't think up a more honest label if you were a cannibal.

We live about two blocks from Gene and Paul's Fresh Meats, the oldest, contiuously operating meat market in Dorchester, Mass., located at the intersection of Dot Ave and East Cottage Street and Crescent Avenue. As a sometime customer, I've always enjoyed the cuts offered by this establishment when I've needed a bit of animal protein to flavor a dish and I've also enjoyed the service.

While Gene and Paul offer the usual fare of chicken (das haehechen), pork (das schweinefleisch), and beef (das rindfleisch), and during the X-mas season they offer up a X-mas goose a-la-Dickens (die ganse). That's about it for the options. Curious about what else is available from Boston's meat cutters outside of Dorchester, we ventured on the Red Line to Charles/MGH station.

Entering the jaded, decadent zone at the back of Beacon Hill, we stepped through the door of Savenor's Market at 160 Charles Street. Savenor's motto is "Best on the Block," and by that they mean best on the chopping block. The shop is known for selling exotic game fit to eat.

The options, besides the domesticated breeds available at Gene and Paul's, included packages of ground antelope, ground bear, and a skinned coil of rattlesnake. The most tempting option of all was a selection of frozen iguanas. The chopping block and cleaver had been put to good use in preparing the iguana carcasses, but they were kept far from the skinning hook, the fillet knife, and the meat grinder. These iguanas were shrink wrapped sans head and feet onto their styrofoam trays with skin and frills in full glory. They were bright green on the outside, as if they had been killed nestled in some tropical, Galapagos foliage, keeping their color as obviously ineffective camouflage.

The iguanas' poses perched on their styrofoam trays, absent heads and feet of course, matched how they must have perched at the time of capture. They looked like they were ready to leap, adding to the exoticism of the promised meal. I don't know how popular iguana (dei eidechse) is on Beacon Hill but looking at the exposed flesh in the neck, wrists and ankles, it seems to be low fat and, thus, heart healthy. It is a bit pricey though. The cheapest iguana on sale was $97 and change. Sorry, Savenor's.... no sale. I picked up three chicken-and-apple sausages instead. They made two delightful meals this weekend. The sausages were about six bucks. I don't think iguana Bolagnese would have been any tastier.