[MUSIC PLAYING] ARTHUR BOYT: Well not all my
neighbors know what I am. Yes, I have a bad reputation
for eating roadkill. [MUSIC PLAYING] ARTHUR BOYT: Here we are at the
gateway to our property. It is Butterwell farm. We had a badger come
across here. Ran across here,
and over there. Every night he was
coming down. And one night, coming up, I
very nearly ran him over. Just caught sight of him about
to go under the wheel. Yes. Yes, I've hit at least one
pheasant and one rabbit. But I would do my utmost to
avoid killing anything. This is a polecat ferret. I found it not a mile
away from here. And it, as you see, has
been thoroughly rolled out on the road. They stink. The flesh smells. But you can overcome that by
putting the body into running water for four days. And that will remove that musky
tang from the meat. But yes, you could eat it. You'd have to be pretty hard up
to want to eat a polecat. I live here on [INAUDIBLE] with my wife. And with a cat. I'm often asked, how
did this all begin? After 1976, when I was living
on my own, I didn't have to bother and with anybody else's
feelings in the matter. The food was there to be
brought home and eaten. I would pick up roadkill
in those days to bring home and mount. I am a taxidermist. So I'd skin things,
and then stuff. And instead of throwing the body
away, I decided to start eating them. I think that's how it came
about on a regular basis. I'm pretty sure I'd
eaten badger before that, and a swan. [MUSIC PLAYING] ARTHUR BOYT: Right here
is the famous freezer. A young hedgehog. A barn owl that was nearby. An antler there, and
an antler there. This is a lovely bird. That's a snipe. I picked that up in Devon. I don't know what
this fellow is. He's a reptile. Here's a sparrowhawk that
flew into the window. In fact, I've got three
sparrowhawks here. Badger, cat, 2008. Hind legs of a cat. Butchered, ready to eat. And a buzzard. I have occasionally hit an
animal myself, by accident. But I never aim to
kill an animal. I do my utmost to avoid it. I come across it in my regular
or irregular journeys in and out of Cornwall. Badger, Camel Valley,
April, 2001. Here's the heart, the kidneys,
and, ah yes, the testes and his willie. Now the badger has a bone in its
willie called the baculum. And I've got quite
a few of those. You can eat the penis, yes. It's not particularly tasty. But I'd imagine a bit like in
the Arab world the horse penis is quite a delicacy. But I wouldn't say it's anything
to write home about. This is it the badger's head. This is my favorite,
because you've got the big muscles here. And you've got the
salivary glands. You've got the tongue. You've got the eyeballs, very
essential for good sight. And then you've got the brain. So you've got one, two, three,
four, five different tastes and textures in one saucepan. They all taste different,
feel different. Here we are. Where do I find-- price range, $180 to $680. [PHONE RINGING] ARTHUR BOYT: Hello. It's reasonably undamaged? Yes, I know. I've got it. OK, we've got a badger. We'll go along and see
if I can find that. Good. I don't eat everything I find. But there's nothing in this
country that I wouldn't eat. I've eaten a couple of bats. Not a lot there,
I must confess. I've got the key. -Would you ever eat
your own cat? ARTHUR BOYT: Where
has she gone? There she is. There she is. We had a cat that died. And he's buried up there. I didn't eat it. If my wife found out,
what would I say? [MUSIC PLAYING] ARTHUR BOYT: 1982, I cycled
across America, from New Orleans to Winnipeg. And I found a lot of roadkill,
of course on the way. On one occasion I stopped
near Kansas City. There was this brilliant
scarlet bird lying in the gutter. And I stopped and
picked it up. And as I did so, a car
drew up beside me. And it was a police car. And he wound down
the window down. And he said, do you mind
stepping off the highway before you get killed? So that was rather nice. [MUSIC PLAYING] ARTHUR BOYT: This looks
like fresh badger. Let's have a look at it, and
see what condition it's in. It's not too bad. It's not been squashed. Yeah. It may have been here a little
while, but it doesn't look rotten yet. It's jaw is dislocated. I would say it's been for
probably at least a month. But it's been very
cold weather. So it has kept. Yeah, it's edible, I reckon. I have never been ill from
eating roadkill. I've been ill from eating
food supplied at a buffet, for instance. But I've never been ill,
ever, eating roadkill. If it's well cooked, I think
there's very little chance of any bugs, bacteria surviving. Well, we'll take it back
and see if it's OK. And then skin it, cut
it up, and eat it. It's a lady badger. [MUSIC PLAYING] ARTHUR BOYT: I certainly think
there is a lot to be said against eating meat that
involves animals being killed on my behalf. For animals to be killed so that
I can eat them, and chuck away what I don't fancy
is a terrible thing. You see people in a restaurant
that leave no end of meat uneaten. Well that animal has died in
vain, in a way, you can say. Shall we put it like that? Every joint of meat you
eat has been hacked from a body like this. You never think of that
when you tuck into a beef burger, do you? Got the knife in, but as you
see, with an intact skull you can get a bit of
leverage on it. Nice crunchy noises. There's the heart. OK, that's all we
want from this. I'm going to leave the neck. This I shall put out for the
crows and the ravens and the buzzards and the foxes. [MUSIC PLAYING] ARTHUR BOYT: The reason I
started eating roadkill regularly was because
I was on my own. My wife had been made
to leave me. She'd be made to leave
me by the religious sect to which I belonged. This is me in the days when
I was young and handsome. Do you want it under
the light? I'm sitting on my bed
in my aunt's house. And I'm reading my Bible. I was a member of the
Exclusive Brethren. I used to preach in
the street, three times a week or more. Until I was 36, when they kicked
me out for questioning the administration. They wanted to stop us from
interpreting prayers for the deaf people in the community. And I questioned it. I have a twin brother. When I got kicked out, he had
no more to do with me. And they made my
wife leave me. It's unthinkable. So I got a divorce. And have since happily
remarried. But I now do not believe in
the existence of God. I suppose that eating road
kill is a new adventure. And when you first go to eat
something that isn't supplied by the butcher, you've got
to cross a threshold. You are going into unknown
territory. All I'm doing here is just
sealing the meat. And that is well charged
with onion and garlic. I eat a badger once that someone
else had picked up and put on one side. Because they wanted
it's skull. It was blown up like a horse
on the Western Front. And it smelled rather
horrible. When I cut into it, the
flesh was green. But nevertheless,
I persevered. And stewed it. It made the house smell like
the old fashioned mental hospitals used to. But boy, it tasted delicious. Well that's the casserole
in the oven. And to be well cooked it wants
to be in there for three and a half hours. Then we'll see how it goes. Cannibalism, it's a
tricky question. I don't think it for me to
make comments about other people being cannibals. But if I were in a situation
where there was human flesh available, and it might sustain
me or others with me, I would have no compunction
about eating it. All right? Allow me to introduce you to
Mister Jonathan King, and his son, Peter King. He happens to be the brother
of my good wife. I knew someone who worked in a
hospital lab who could have got a human leg for me. But I decided that fun though
it might be, it would be irresistible to tell somebody
I'd done it. And once I told them,
I would be branded forever as a cannibal. Who knows what that
might result in. -Badger. ARTHUR BOYT: This way,
this way, this way. Here we are. The skull, meat slipping
off it. Look at that, nicely cooked. Here we have a casserole,
badger's head. Boyt specialty. This is very tender. Mm. I should be in at the
brains in a moment. I think the brains have all
bubbled out, actually. The have a tendency
to do that. They're not where
they originated. -How about a tongue? Can you pull the tongue out? ARTHUR BOYT: Yeah, I can
pull the tongue out. Here is the tongue. Do you see the tongue there? There's the tongue. See that? Lovely, badger tongue. Mm. [LATIN TRUMPET MUSIC PLAYING] ARTHUR BOYT: Peter,
to the badger. PETER KING: To the badger. Thank you. ARTHUR BOYT: A misses badger,
it was, a badger sow. PETER KING: It's not
bad, actually.
I'm conflicted as to if this man is a lunatic or a genius. Both maybe.
Wait for the end.
I think he's hilarious. I'd love to meet him.
too many people waste meat these days. Give people like this gentleman Europe's unwanted horse-contaminated meatο»Ώ
he sounds like Bilbo Baggins ο»Ώ
I watched a documentary on this quite a while back (like mabey 5 or so years ago). Seems like a nice guy if a bit eccentric. Glad to know he is still up to his old tricks.
For what it's worth he looks pretty youthful for a 73 year old.
big deal