SACRAMENTO, CA (November 12, 2021) – On this week’s Dead Meat with host Scott Leysath on Sportsman Channel, Leysath embarks on a journey to Puerto Rico to learn how to hunt iguanas in their natural habitat and finally learn - do they taste like chicken? Tune in for the all-new episode of Dead Meat on Sportsman Channel Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET.

Iguanas run rampant in Puerto Rico, digging a honeycomb system of holes, and essentially disrupting the underground infrastructure of roads and buildings. Leysath has permission to hunt down as many iguanas as possible as these reptiles have no natural predators. After they are done with iguana hunting, they take on another invasive species – the feral pig.

“I’ve cooked it all – or so I thought,” shared Leysath. “This is my journey to hunt down and meet people who cook the wild, weird and hopefully, edible. But iguanas carry salmonella, so we must be careful to cook them at high temps until they’re safe to eat. We learned that female iguanas are much better for meat, and that the locals only eat the tails of the males, but iguanas aren’t part of their daily diet so they’re everywhere you look.”

To get the meat, they first must boil the skinned tail or body. They add spices along with onion, peppers, and tomato, which is stuffed into a pastry shell along with cheese and fried to make a turnover – or empanadas. “For all those who say, ‘I could never eat iguana!’ what we had in Puerto Rico was delicious,” shared Leysath. “It helps to have the meat simmer for a few hours in those spices to remove any fishy taste. It seems like all reptiles have a fishy edge to the meat.”

Visit https://iguanahuntingtourspr.com/ to book hunting tours in Puerto Rico

This season, the series visits Florida for a swamp buggy snipe hunt, and then learns a new twist on cooking snipe, plus they land in Puerto Rico to see if Iguanas do really taste like chicken. And what one may consider a delicacy in other cultures (enter: Hagfish) are downright slimy and shall we say, gross, stateside. But Leysath is on a mission to find those people who make eating the less-desirable parts of animals, something they do daily.

Like podcasts? Get your fill of wild game and wine by tuning in for Scott’s “Off the Record with The Sporting Chef and Michelle” available anywhere podcasts are downloaded.

Learn more about Dead Meat and Leysath’s other series, The Fishmonger and The Sporting Chef at http://sportingchef.com/ Also, subscribe to Sporting Chef YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/user/sportingchef; visit on Facebook at http://facebook.com/TheSportingChef and Instagram at http://instagram.com/sportingchef

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