Roadkill Dinner Party

24. April 2007

“So you’ve been doing the cooking then?” I said to Sol as we entered the kitchen and I presented her with a 3 liter bag-in-box of red wine from my handbag, a homemade cake and the Stud Muffin.

“Well, yes and him,” she patted her apron, laughed and pointed at Joe who was hovering over by the cooker. The slightly guilty look on her face suggested that he had been more than just a little involved. At least I was not the only female among my friends who was not entirely comfortable in the kitchen. Being slightly uncomfortable with the role as hostess, as well as having to speak English because of the Stud Muffin, must have been why she then just blurted out:

“Oh, and we’re having road kill for dinner!”

The following laughter killed the awkwardness about as quickly as the car must have killed tonight’s dinner. Although most of my friends are more than competent English speakers they seem to tie up when they actually have to speak it in a social setting. I was invited to a friend for dinner the other day but when I explained that the Stud Muffin was still here I got a reply saying: “Ladies only! Will reschedule next week. I can’t speak English!” Which is of course complete rubbish.

But Sol and Joe were a lot more international having both lived abroad, and they were prepared to spend the evening in English as long as there was plenty of wine involved. Hence the bag-in-box produced from my handbag. I was not something I would normally consider an appropriate present for the hostess when invited around for dinner. As it happened Sol had bought one too so it looked like we were well covered for the evening.

When we had stopped laughing about the road kill situation Sol explained that one of her friends had accidentally hit and killed the animal about to be served and had decided to take it home and fill up his freezer. For a minute the Stud Muffin seemed a little taken aback by this information. After all it was his first meeting with a Norwegian dinner party, and I don’t think that he in his wildest imagination had seen this coming. But fortunately he also appreciated the comedy value in it and was soon assured by our hostess that this was quite normal here in Norway. He also seemed relieved that we were talking moose and not hedgehog or any other rodent. So the unfortunate animal was served up without any protests, accompanied by roast potatoes and vegetables that had died of unknown causes. I mean it is not like any of us have fruitarian sympathies, but then again we would hardly be having moose if we did.

“Hunting licenses for moose are very expensive here so if you happen to hit one it’s a good thing really,” Joe explained and went on to suggest that I should try and hit a moose with my recently death sentenced car instead of just scrapping it.

From a financial point of view this was not an entirely bad idea. I would only get 1.500 Kroner from scrapping it and a large moose would probably be worth a lot more by the time you had paid for the license and how ever much they charge per kilo hunted animal these days. But considering my Nissan Micra is from 1989 and about as secure as a cheap tin can chances are it would not be great for my wellbeing to get 500 kilos of moose through the windscreen.

“The trick is to hit it at high speed because then it will fly over the car and not join you in the front seat,” said Joe whilst tucking into his very large portion of moose casserole enjoying every bit of it.

“I think I’ll pass,” I replied and took a big slug of my wine as the mere thought of going head on with a moose in my little car freaked me out. And although I enjoy moose a lot, unless I upgraded my live insurance, it would be a better option just to scrap it and get meat from the shop down the road. I am not that confident in my driving skills as far as hitting large animals correctly goes and besides the Micra would probably not even be able to knock the moose over -even if I did manage to get it up to 100 km by some miracle.

But what I have considered is signing up for this new reality program I am being told about. It’s called “Kill it, Cook it, Eat it”. That should be just up my street. So if they ever decide to do a Norwegian version I’ll be willing to reconsider my stand on reality TV. Actually I think I’ll volunteer Sol and Joe too. It could be a really good laugh. Mind you I don’t know if they’d do road kill your own moose -although it would probably make pretty good TV.