April 1961: Popular Science Suggests Eating Hippopotamuses
April 1961: Hippo Steak Popular Science This article originally appeared in the April 1961 issue of Popular Science. You can explore more of our archives--stretching back 140 years--here. Git along, little hippo. The romantic days of the open range may come back--in Africa, and with a native twist. Great herds of elephants, hippopotamuses, and eland, rounded up by dark-skinned wranglers (hippoboys?), [2012 note: eeeeeep] could supply desperately needed meat for the fast-growing, hungry continent. This is the idea advanced by several American experts. They build a strong case: Much of Africa is no good for farming--too little rain in some areas, mineral-deficient soil in others. Only recently a grandiose attempt to grow earthnuts (English for peanuts) in Tanganyika went completely bust. ("A megalomaniac pipe dream advanced in ignorance of the plainest facts about African soils," is what Fraser Darling of the Conservation Foundation called it.) Standard livestock--cattle, sheep, goats--are no better adapted to undeveloped...