House of Jerky - Camel Jerky

House of Jerky has extended their line of exotic meat jerky to include this Camel Jerky. They also offer Python Jerky now too.

The company started in 1997 by Ron and Janie Honeycutt, a husband and wife team in Temecula, CA. They opened a store there, but eventually moved their corporate office to Evansville, IN. The Temecula store is still there. Since then, they've franchised their business and now have House of Jerky shops all over the country.

This package of Camel Jerky doesn't make any claims on flavor, texture, quality, nor even mention where the camels were sourced from, or even the breed of camel. It's just plainly labeled as, "Camel".

Ingredients

Camel, teriyaki sauce, brown sugar, garlic, onion, liquid smoke, sodium nitrite

Review

The first flavors that I pick up are a significant sweet with a touch of salt, and hints of onion. The chewing brings on a bit more sweet while the teriyaki starts to come into view. The hint of onion continues on with faint levels of black pepper finally drifting in.

For being marketed as Camel Jerky, I taste only light bits of natural meat flavor. There's no gamey flavor, no blood rich flavor, it's quite subtle in this jerky. If anything, I'd say the meat has a lightly sweet character, but then again this jerky is already heavily sweetened. Maybe it's comparable to a beef/pork blend. However, if I didn't know this is camel meat, I'd still believe it came from beef.

Otherwise, the primary taste profile is a well-sweetened teriyaki with a subtle onion and light touches of black pepper.

The meat consistency shows light streaks of fat throughout the meat, but for the most part is still lean. I did find an occasional piece of unchewable tissue. The chewing texture starts out chewy, perhaps a little tough, but softens up and becomes tender and meaty. Overall, it has a steak-like texture, but more soft like something cooked rare to medium.

Verdict

This Camel Jerky from House of Jerky delivers a light level of natural meat flavor, but seems mostly dominated by a well-sweetened teriyaki. The light seasonings of onion and black pepper are great to give these slabs of camel a bit of savory interest, however the stronger teriyaki overpowers the natural camel meat flavor. Otherwise, what camel meat flavor there is in this tastes clean, not gamey. It has a sweet character, and something I'd describe as a beef/pork blend. The texture tends to be chewy and a little bit tough, yet still softens up with some chewing and takes on a steak-like feel. Being that this is the first camel jerky I've reviewed, I can't really compare it to anything else, but only note that the heavy use of teriyaki makes it difficult to enjoy the flavor of camel meat, and hence becomes more of a simple, plain, teriyaki jerky.

Rating: Average (3/5)