Richard Dawson, popular actor, iguana fancier, science writer, and chat-show guest, says he’s had a change of heart on the “God” question.

Having proclaimed his atheism for many decades, with the foot-stomping obstinacy of Augustus-who-would-not-eat-his-soup, Dawson now says he may have been wrong.

“I don’t consider myself an atheist anymore, quite,” he says. “Maybe I’m an agnostic, because that leaves me open to error, innit?”

Dawson says he’s currently living in a caravan near Wigan Pier and working on screenplay proposal. “But I still hear from my agent every day.”

South Florida gator dealer has long used iguanas as food for his friendly crocodilians. But now he says he’s found even better uses:

Brian Wood, owner of All American Gator, an alligator-processing and iguana-trapping company in Hollywood, is avidly searching for a market for his trapped iguanas. Wood said he captures more than a thousand of the creatures a month.

“I feel bad just killing them and wasting it, so I started keeping them,” he said.

Now, more than a thousand of the lizards live on his iguana farm in LaBelle, in Hendry County. Because he captures so many, Wood said he feeds some to his alligators and turns others into wallets.

“With the number of iguanas I catch, I could make a fortune off selling them if I could find a market,” Wood said. “When I first started selling alligator, people asked, ‘Who would eat alligator?’ Now, I sell 80,000 pounds of it a year.”

Whole story here!

There is really nothing unusual about using iguanas as a foodstuff, say folks familiar with the reptile. Many savages and other animals have eaten them for generations. 

From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

While many people view South Florida’s invasive iguana population as an annoyance at best and a pandemic at worst, Ishmeal Asson sees something else: lunch.

The Fort Lauderdale resident and native Trinidadian considers eating iguanas to be a way of life. Growing up, Asson learned to roast the island critters at roadside and backyard gatherings. Iguana is a staple in the Caribbean, where the reptiles are a native species and are known as “pollo de los árboles,” or chicken of the trees. Their meat contains more protein than chicken, and members of some cultures believe it has medicinal properties.

In South Florida, Asson is hardly alone in his taste for cooked iguana. He has more than a dozen friends who eat the animal, and they frequently hunt them using nets, snares and traps. “We are having a cookout this weekend,” he said earlier this week.

Full article is here.

As winter arrives, we are bound to see a flurry of new iguana recipes and news reports about the popularity of iguana barbecues in Florida!

Why, just recently, this turned up in a south Florida journal of doubtful significance:

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — While many people view South Florida’s invasive iguana population as an annoyance at best and a pandemic at worst, Ishmeal Asson sees something else: lunch.

The Fort Lauderdale resident and native Trinidadian considers eating iguanas to be a way of life. Growing up, Asson learned to roast the island critters at roadside and backyard gatherings. Iguana is a staple in the Caribbean, where the reptiles are a native species and are known as “pollo de los árboles,” or chicken of the trees. Their meat contains more protein than chicken, and members of some cultures believe it has medicinal properties.

The rest of the story may be found here. It’s longer and more informative than most. And toward the end you even get something resembling a recipe:

“You just have to try it, though,” said Brittany Peters, who during a recent trip to South Florida made an iguana-inspired meal for the first time.

With no experience cooking the beasties, Peters went with a simpler route than roasting the meat over an open flame — she made burritos. Peters shot two green iguanas in the Keys, then skinned, boiled and sauteed the meat at her relatives’ home in Fort Lauderdale.

She boiled the skinned body for about an hour, then picked off the tender meat. She added a chili-lime seasoning from Trader Joe’s before sauteing it with onions.

Peters paired the white meat with sour cream, cilantro, avocado and lime for a “delicious” reptile burrito.

(A note of caution to veteran and would-be iguana eaters: Although it is illegal to do so, nuisance iguanas are occasionally poisoned. Before biting into iguana meat, make sure it does not contain any poisons or other harmful substances.)

This was recently brought to our attention:

Iggy Pop is a survivor, a warrior of Rock music that we must be grateful for still being able to witness on his ongoing legendary career. Andy Warhol wrote once about Iggy Pop after meeting him in 1966 as Jim Osterberg at Ann Arbor Film Festival . “I don’t know why he hasn’t made it really big,” Warhol wrote. “He is so good.”

Mid-60s An-dee

Born James Newell Osterberg, Jr on April 21st 1947 in Musekon, Michigan and raised in a trailer park, “The Iguana” rose to fame during the 1970’s, but his career started in the 60’s as a drummer for several garage rock bands, including The Iguanas, from which he created his stage name Iggy. After attending a The Doors show in Detroit 1967, Iggy was mesmerized and intrigued by Jim Morrison on stage persona and in 1968 formed The Stooges heavily inspired by what he had witnessed at The Doors concert.

Read the whole thing over here.