Roadkill becomes a student meal.

Forget beans on toast: Hard-up students turn to ROADKILL for cheap meals

Last updated at 1:32 PM on 26th October 2010

Hard-up students are dining out on roadkill recipes by scraping up dead animals found at the side of the road.

Dead pheasant, hare and even badger are bagged up and loaded into cars near the New Forest and taken back to Bournemouth University before being cooked.

As part of their degree course, students then skin the carcasses as they are taught about butchering techniques from different periods in history.

Making a meal of it: Student Jim Gooch is one of the students at Bournemouth University who has taken to eating roadkill

Despite the green credentials of their diet, most students who partake in the roadkill collections wish to keep their identities secret.

A staff member who has worked at the university for almost 10 years said the roadkill meat is some of the best he's ever tasted.

He said: 'The group would find all sorts of animals at the side of the road. They were used for class demonstrations to show how butchering methods have developed throughout history.

'But after the lesson we'd be left with piles of meat - so we'd have a barbecue. There would be staff as well as students involved in it - we didn't do it every time but why let it go to waste?  

'We know the source, it's fresh and really good for you because of all the nutrition these wild animals contain. It's really tasty meat.'

Students at Bournemouth have even revealed the sessions left them scrambling to find more roadkill in their own time.

One student, a 23-year-old studying Forensic Archaeology, said: 'The practical lesson was interesting, but after the lesson it got even more interesting.

Lunch? The students have been taking animals like badgers and rabbits from the roadside near the New Forest

'It was strange at first but the meat was delicious. After a few bites I forgot I was eating an animal that had its brains smashed in by a car.'  

A former student added: 'One time a group found a deer, it was huge. They bought it back and it was some of the best meat I've ever had. I collected some myself now and then - my housemates thought I was a bit mental. But I saved money and it's better than supermarket meat.'  

Krish Seetah, who took the sessions, has taught at Bournemouth University, the University of Central Lancashire as well as Cambridge University. He revealed the sessions were aimed at teaching students at a glance which period in time a bone belongs to.

He said: 'I was a butcher for seven years. It was one of the ways I became interested in it and it was just an obvious connection to bring it into an archaeological framework.

'We study different periods from the medieval to the neolithic and prehistoric and what that tells us about the animals.

'You have to be quite cautious about eating an animal if you don't know the source, but there's certainly no reason why someone shouldn't do it.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323843/Students-turn-ROADKILL-cheap-meals.html#ixzz13TIRwdzl