Is the meat from a frozen mammoth still good enough to eat?
Risa, Age 11, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Dr. dig responds:
In the 1960s, when the explorer Coleman S. Williams discovered the frozen
remains of a 50,000-year-old horse sticking out of a glacier near Goldcreek,
Alaska, he found that hungry wolves and bears had gotten to it first‹there
was almost no meat left on the bones of the prehistoric pony. Not wanting to
be cheated out of his share of this flavorful fossil, Williams sectioned the
skeleton and found the marrow in the bones still fresh and edible. He
quickly brought the bones back to New York on ice. The marrow was scooped
out and used as an ingredient for a tasty cocktail treat which he served to
a large and distinguished crowd of people at an annual Explorers Club
dinner. Do you suppose this is how we get the term hors(e) d'oeuvres?