Cane toad on the menu in viral video

A former chef preparing cane toads to eat has become an unlikely internet sensation.

Former chef and NT tour guide David McMahon was approached by a Tasmanian art exhibition to catch some cane toads and eat them for their Eat The Problem exhibition.

McMahon uses just the legs of the poisonous pest, emphasising that they are all killed humanely.

“I put them in the fridge until they go to sleep, then I whacked them in the freezer,” he told PerthNow.

“I had to do around two kilos of legs, so I estimated that to be about 100 toads, which was scarily easy to collect.”

To prep simply cut the legs off with a meat cleaver and peel the skin off “like a glove.”

He then lightly seasoned the legs, put them in a pan and fried them on each side.

The poison glands are located in the head and skin, but the toads are safe to eat as long as they are rinsed thoroughly in salty water before cooking, according to McMahon.

So can we expect cane toads to appear on menus any time soon? No, says McMahon.

“There’s probably a limited number of people, certainly Australians that are going to get into the idea of eating cane toads,” he said. “It’s something that people find disgusting, the idea of cane toads is so disgusting, we’re quite limited in our range of foods. Australians tend not to be too out there with what they try and eat.”

Sheridan Randall, 18^th February 2019