Who wants to try one?
(My favorite part of the video is when The Huntress is slipping the skinned carcass into the boiling water, and she says he looks kinda cute.)
ADDED: Let me embed the video. Not for animal-lovers or the queasy, but really funny, especially after the shooting part.
UPDATE: I'm creating a "squirrel" label, in case you want to read all 34 Althouse blog posts.
September 26, 2007
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46 comments:
We need Judge Posner to opine about this.
Would you like some pootine and a Labaats with that?
You've heard of tuna melts and pattie melts -- why not squirrel melts?
This is hilarious. I felt like I was watching a SNL TV ad spoof.
Did you see how much mayonnaise she put it in? And then she heated it up. I'm still upset about the mayonnaise... more than the squirrel. I can completely accept shooting squirrels and eating them. It makes sense to me. But that recipe was insane, and the woman was... in some weird comedy twilight zone.
I mean: in it...
Kentucky Doctors Warn Against a Regional Dish: Squirrels' Brains
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Published: August 29, 1997
Doctors in Kentucky have issued a warning that people should not eat squirrel brains, a regional delicacy, because squirrels may carry a variant of mad cow disease that can be transmitted to humans and is fatal.
Although no squirrels have been tested for mad squirrel disease, there is reason to believe that they could be infected, said Dr. Joseph Berger, chairman of the neurology department at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Elk, deer, mink, rodents and other wild animals are known to develop variants of mad cow disease that collectively are called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
In the last four years, 11 cases of a human form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, have been diagnosed in rural western Kentucky, said Dr. Erick Weisman, clinical director of the Neurobehavioral Institute in Hartford, Ky., where the patients were treated.
''All of them were squirrel-brain eaters,'' Dr. Weisman said. Of the 11 patients, at least 6 have died.
And the nuts! She puts nuts in with the dead squirrel because squirrels when alive eat nuts. That's like braising human flesh in Diet Coke.
Ann Althouse said...
And the nuts!
Don't eat the brains, or the nuts!
LOL. George was interposing his brains comment while I was writing about the nuts.
I loved this video.
"Where is the second safety?"
Where in the world did you find this thing?
She didn't talk about cleaning them, I notice. Squirrels, like many fur-bearers, have scent glands that must be removed prior to cooking, or the meat tastes horrible.
Bob, yeah, I know. Suddenly, there's this immaculate carcass. How do you get to that point? We don't see how to pick all the flesh off the bones either. Yet somehow, we get the first-hand instruction on how to dump in nuts and mayonnaise and stir.
The shooting is also made to look easy. We see the clean shot, but I'll bet they left out plenty of grisly stuff.
Reading the old camping and woodcraft manuals from early last century gives all sorts of nice tips about cleaning game. Horace Kephart in Camping and Woodcraft advised that the scrotum of a deer, tanned with the hair on, makes a fine tobacco pouch.
*laughs*
That's like braising human flesh in Diet Coke.
I laughed so hard I cried!
But seriously, I prefer my squirrel slow cooked in red wine, helps make the meat a bit more tender.
Beer works, too.
In my younger days I did try squirrel in Brunswick stew (http://www.tourbrunswick.org/brunswick_stew.htm) It was tasty, except squirrels are a bit difficult to clean--the hide does not come off easily. The effort to meat ratio was far too high for me to justify hunting them. Plus, squirrels are really high on the cute list--right up there with chipmunks.
And here's the classic Muppets episode of the Swedish Chef trying to make squirrel stew.
link
Plus, squirrels are really high on the cute list--right up there with chipmunks.
No way. Both are the most verminous of vermin. Cute as a bunion.
I thought I'd Google around to learn more about the show. Turns out that Huntress was a show on the Outdoor Channel in 1999-2000 or so (I don't know how long it lasted). I also found that one of the show's hosts (not the one in this clip), participated in advertising for the "Walkers Game Ear"---a combination ear plug and hearing aid specially programmed to attenuate gunshot noise. It seems like a really interesting and helpful product. But for some reason this tagline makes me chuckle:
"Hear Like You've Never Heard Before... and Protect From The Harmful Effects of Muzzle Blasts!"
"squirrels are a bit difficult to clean--the hide does not come off easily"
Half way across the back, make a cut through the skin big enough to get two fingers of each hand in. Then pull apart. I eaten hundreds of them.
Whatever happened to that Made-in-New-Zealand zombie sheep movie?
"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0779982/"
Don't the squism posts also belong under your squirrel label? It's a squirrel bodily fluid and I know you have that tag.
Ann - so pleased to see you confronting one of your nemeses. Now if only you could find a recipe for hors d'oeuvre de bat. A nice cracker, a little goat cheese and a bat carcass - that's some good eatin'. Not that I actually know...
This is somehow related to the Van Gogh thread, right? I thought I was going to vomit when she put mayo in with the squirrel meat. Something with vinegar-based sauce, like a BBQ sauce, would have made more sense, but mayo? Yuck.
Bat or badger? It's the roadkill recipe book
Key quote: "Fox tends to repeat on him."
Wild Man, Wild Food: The Roadkill Diet---'Fergus the Forager' Serves Up Squirrels, Pheasants and Plenty of Food for Thought
Wait...here's news...
Amputated leg turns up in smoker
Original owner plans to get it back
Marcie Young, The Charlotte Observer
John Wood is trying to get from South Carolina to Catawba County today to retrieve his leg.
On Tuesday, a man from Maiden, N.C., found the lost appendage in a barbecue smoker he had bought from a storage facility.
The man took the smoker home, looked inside, and saw something wrapped in paper. Inside, Maiden Police Chief Troy Church said, was Wood's leg -- the foot and most of the calf. Police are keeping it for Wood.
Doctors amputated Wood's leg after a 2004 plane crash in Wilkes County that killed Wood's father and injured two other family members, Wood said.
"When it was amputated, he told [the hospital] that he wanted that leg saved," said his sister, Marin Wood-Lytle. "He wanted to keep the bone because he wanted to be buried as a full man." But instead of a bone, a funeral home delivered the whole leg.
Wood put it in his freezer, his sister said. It became something of a joke when she came over. "I wouldn't even get a Pepsi out of his refrigerator."
But it stopped being funny when Wood got behind on his power bill and his electricity was shut off, the sister said.
Despite his family's protests, Wood-Lytle said, her brother took the screen off his front porch, wrapped the leg inside and "tied it to two posts to let it dry. He was going to mummify it."
Wood-Lytle said her brother was homeless for a while, living in his van, which he eventually lost.
Their mother put his belongings in a storage facility in Maiden, about 45 miles northwest of Charlotte, and she paid for the first few months, Wood-Lytle said.
On Tuesday, Wood declined to answer most questions. He did say he put the leg in the smoker because "I didn't have anything else to secure it in. There were no macabre intentions."
Maiden police officers talked with the storage facility's owner, who was auctioning off items in the units of people who were behind on their payments. Wood said he asked the owner of the storage facility not to open his belongings and is trying to get from Greenville County, S.C., to get his things.
On Tuesday, his sister was watching TV and saw the man who found her brother's leg and thought, "It just seems to never go away."
She said an officer came by Tuesday and said they had her brother's leg.
"John had told them 'how about just dropping it off at my sister's and she'll just hold it until I get there,' " she said. "I told them 'don't bring that thing in my house.' "
George - re: squirrel brains.
I've been a medical transcriptionist for about 25 years now, and one of the reports I did in the beginning of my career (early 1980's) dealt with someone who had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The doctor made mention of the fact that the patient had a history of eating squirrel brains.
For some reason, through all these years and after the 10's of 1000's of reports I've transcribed, that little tidbit of information has stayed with me. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that (1) people actually eat squirrel brains, and (2) the disease makes holes in the brain itself.
Yeesh!!
There are too many tree rodents with cute, fluffy tails. WHY do people feed them on purpose? Mine get chased away from the bird feeders and fruit trees by throwing cats at them, but they're not fazed and their numbers have been formidable until recently, when many are missing just as some beautiful hawks have taken up residence in the tall trees around here. (Good luck, cats.)
Can’t work it into the schedule, but was invited on a hunt in Mongolia next month- horseback, hunting with birds of prey, camping in yerta/ gers, etc. Realized that rodent and horse would very likely be on the menu with a local cook along, and was still willing (to go and fast), but the calendar not.
So, can I assume no one here has ever tried boneless fried rat nuggets?
Yummy.
I suppose somebody's got to be the dumb nerd that asks, "Where's their eye protection?"
:-(
My dog prefers her squirrel straight up.
Since they are using shotguns and therefore almost certainly squirrel shot (anything larger would obliterate the animal into an uneatable pulp) I don't think the squirrel carcass presented in the cooking segment is the one that was shot. It lacked the myriad of tiny holes formed when the pellets penetrate the animal’s muscles. Pellets that must be tediously removed before cooking the animal by the way. Otherwise, you risk breaking a tooth. By the way hunting squirrels with a shotgun is not the least bit challenging, in fact I don't think it can honestly be called hunting. Now if they were using a .22.
I think they need bigger guns.
That's like braising human flesh in Diet Coke.
DIET Coke? Yeah, that's just wrong.
The pecans were a nice touch but I can't imagine leaving out onions and celery.
I object to her choice of cheese. It was orange.
No garlic, no chile flakes, nothing acid, sweet, or salty, no curry, no spices, nothing. No Food Network show for you.
I loved the mother son bonding during the hunt but why did it stop at the kitchen? Does she trust him with a gun but not with knives?
Never having done it... I thought the idea was to "bark" the squirrel, not fill it up with shot.
I'm just waiting for any gratuitous PETA comments to show up.
Where's their eye protection?
Have you ever tried to buy squirrel sized safety glasses? Besides, I doubt that would have been enough to save them from being eaten.
Methadras,
I think I'll have me some delicious Boxer stew for supper tonight. First, I get out me trusty shotgun, then I shoot the dirty (cute) rascal with some buckshot, then I get out me trusty sharp knife and skin the darn thing. (It's real fine to shoot those damn varmint dogs!!)Though I'll skip the Boxer brains sandwich, which is worse than egg salad. I would call PETA, if I were you, to see if your dogs are safe, because I have an appetite for braised Boxer meat that I could just kill for...
That's like braising human flesh in Diet Coke.
I'd prefer it with fava beans and a nice chianti.
I think I'll have me some delicious Boxer stew for supper tonight.
That's just wrong. What's Barbara ever done to YOU?
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