Geek exercise of the day

[alpharaposa]

Suppose you caught a hippogriff. How would you dress it?

How would you butcher it?

If you roasted it whole, what method would you use?

When serving the roasted hippogriff, what would it look like?

What kinds of spices and vegetables go well with both horse and eagle?

Comments

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Eek! I read the first line as 'how would you dress up a live hippogriff' and was pondering why you would put a dress on a hippogriff.

Personally, hippogriffs would be rare and unusual enough killing one would be a waste, so I'd be more inclined toward 'catch-and-ride' solutions than 'catch-and-eat', but if one must satiate one's hunger... I've never eaten eagle but I'd guess it would be very gamy and stringy. I suspect you'd need a lot of pineapple juice to tenderize it.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

I personally find the thought of killing and eating a horse to be very distasteful, so the thought of doing such with a mythical creature that's part horse is, quite honestly, even worse.

So, to answer your questions in order:
I wouldn't.
See previous.
See previous.
I wouldn't know.
None.

Seriously, something that majestic and graceful doesn't belong on the dinner table...if anything, were I ever to catch one I'd work on taming it so that I could use it to hunt game.

Would probably be accepted by the locals quickly enough...we're all used to the sight of a guy driving around town with a caribou in the back of his truck, after all. (True story.)

[stryck.livejournal.com]

I had a couple of thoughts on this. I suppose if you fully skinned and defeathered the beast, you would have two cavities to worry over - the neck and the belly. So, probably the best thing to do would be to stuff it with aromatics (like a turkey) and roast the whole thing belly down, with the wingtips tucked under to keep them from getting burned.

Alternatively, you could remove the wings early, feathers intact, and simply save them as presentation material, in Roman fashion.

Of course, Romans were also known to stuff birds with other birds. A hippogriff would have a large cavity, so you might be able to fit a suckling pig inside...

I think red wine or good cider would probably be a good basting liquid.

[zeeth_kyrah]

I'd dress it in light leather armor (hardened and/or enchanted on the underside) and a cloth saddle; with a crossbow hanger and bolt quiver on one side, and a shortbow holster and arrow quiver on the other side. If you mean dressing as in butchery, if I were a hunter field-dressing one as a prize, I'd take the head, tail, wings, and possibly feet/hooves to display as a trophy, and then skin the body and chunk the meat off the bone, carrying the meat home in the skin. Considering the bones have to be light (for flight) and yet extremely strong (to carry the mass plus possibly a rider), I'd probably come back to salvage them for use in weapons or other crafted items. So, best to bring several friends or a whole party along when hunting hippogriff.

As a butcher instead of a hunter, I'd butcher it at the joints, and by slicing along the borders of the large muscle groups, instead of just whatever chunks I could cut free and carry out.

To roast one whole, I'd want either a very large pit or a much larger oven.

When serving, it would look like a well-dressed atrocity: shaved and defeathered (or singed if I didn't want to take an entire day to cook it through), possibly skinned. With sauce. However, I'd be more likely to make a stew of it than a platter, unless I were a giant. I'm not going to go into the presentation of the dish.

Spices and vegetables? Something that helps bring flavor and juice to hard, lean muscles.