And, no, it doesn't taste like chicken

Not being much of a country girl and hardly a native Floridian, I approached Lindy Brookhart Stevens' The Gourmet Gator Cookbook with trepidation.

Sure, I've eaten deep-fried gator bits but, honestly, what isn't tasty prepared that way? Could gator served straight up be good enough to send me to the Internet to order exotic game?

I picked out a recipe and plunged in.

Chris and Kurt's Gator Gallego looked doable. Gallego is a traditional Tampa soup with roots in the Galicia region of Spain, where many Tampa residents of Spanish heritage have ties. The hallmarks of the soup are garbanzo beans, spicy sausage, potatoes and greens, in our case collards. Stevens' version has all that . . . plus gator.

Stevens buys a lot of her gator meat on the Internet (www.cajungrocer.com is her favorite site), so I was sort of stymied as to where to find alligator sausage links. I knew I could buy chunk gator meat at any number of seafood markets for between $6 and $8 a pound and hoped that cut would suffice for a recipe that calls for a thick chunk of alligator tail meat.

Plan ahead when making alligator dishes. You may have to call a handful of retailers before you get what you want. I bought gator chunks and sausage at Trappman Crab Trapp and Shrimp Shack (11350 Gandy Blvd., near the western approach to the bridge; (727) 579-1414.)

Chunks of gator tail, about 2 inches by 1 inch, which have been pounded something like cube steak to tenderize them, are not exactly the right consistency for gallego, but they would have to do. The recipe calls for a chunk of alligator tail (cut up by the cook) but that's easier procured by mail order. I, like most of you, wanted to gather the ingredients with the fewest amount of stops.

Once the meat was purchased, the soup went together quickly and with little fuss. Old Bay Seasoning and paprika undergird the broth, and an occasional bite of spicy gator sausage gives the dish a kick. The light-colored gator chunks, which looked like chicken but didn't taste like it, were quite tender. It was fishy rather than meaty, I thought. (Gator tail and tenderloin are white meat; the rest of the meat is dark.)

Next time I have a hankering for gator I'll take a trip to Dade City beforehand to visit Neil Summers, owner of Pasco Gun Works (36010 State Road 52, (352) 567-9337). He sells all sorts of gator meat including ribs, tenderloin and tenderized Southern cuts, which is what I bought for this recipe. He has chunk tail meat, which is really what I needed, and a whole lot of tips on how to cook gator.

His primary piece of advice is not to overcook it.

"It's already dead," he says. "Don't kill it again."

I'm not sure I would put gator meat on my regular dinner rotation, but I can see why it's attractive to some, especially outdoorsmen and women who have a taste for the hunt and the bounty it brings. Also, gator is low in fat (2.5 grams per 3-ounce serving) and high in protein (25 grams for the same amount). Processing laws require that all fat be stripped from the gator meat to prevent any contamination.

I'm not in love with gator meat, not yet anyway. I'm reserving judgment for some barbecued gator ribs.

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