Ok, true confession? I ate a squirrel and I liked it! Actually, I’ve eaten lots of squirrels. When I was growing up, shooting a squirrel and eating it was no different than catching a fish and eating it. Squirrel season is one of the longest game seasons and the one where many aspiring hunters get their start as a youth. I SO wanted to go squirrel hunting when I was a kid but I wasn’t allowed because…I was a girl! Girls didn’t hunt. It meant they’d have to handle a G-U-N and God forbid…that wasn’t acceptable in my family. I did get to shoot a .22 at tin cans as a teenager but no hunting.

I am not sure I could eat a squirrel now after living in Denver for so many years. They’re like rats there. But I have such fond memories of my grandma’s fried squirrel and squirrel gravy. There’s not a ton of meat on a squirrel so you might have to freeze them till you get a mess of them. (For those of you who don’t know, “a mess” means a bunch. As in “She cooked up a mess a’ beans.” I know…you need a passport to come here.) My daddy taught me how to skin them and clean them. They have a very dark, fine grained, low fat, sweet meat. You quarter them, dredge them in flour with salt and pepper and fry them like you would fry chicken. Ok, now I’ll TOTALLY gross you out…my mom would kill for the brain. (Ok, that totally grossed ME out!)

There are old timey recipe books with other awful offal. Possum, coon, goat, rattlesnake…to name a few. Now, those I have not eaten. I have my limits! What are some odd things you eat or have eaten in your life?