Ostrich is the meat of the common ostrich (Struthio camelus), the world's largest living bird — a flightless African ratite whose flesh, despite coming from a bird, is a deep-red, fine-grained red meat that looks, cooks and eats far more like beef than like poultry. It is notably lean and tender with a mild, faintly sweet, beefy flavour, and is best cooked fast and served rare to medium-rare; the leading producer by far is South Africa.