Eating squirrels
Bradley knows that Mark
and I are interested in trying out more kinds of wild game, so he
kindly brought a squirrel to work with him Wednesday morning. He
had shot it the night before, so the body had gone stiff overnight in
the fridge and took five minutes to skin --- a long time compared to
the one minute Bradley estimates it usually takes him.
After Bradley
illustrated the proper skinning and cleaning technique, we chopped the
carcass up into thirds as suggested and boiled the meat to provide our
lunch. Unfortunately, neither Mark nor I were thrilled by the
taste. I could have spiced it up relatively easily, but wanted to
get an idea of what squirrel really tasted like, so left it plain.
I'm not sure our analysis of
the flavor was really fair, though. When I was able to pretend I
wasn't eating squirrel, I thought it tasted a bit like chicken, but for
some reason the idea of eating a squirrel didn't sit well with
me. I don't think Mark was able to divorce the idea of "squirrel"
from what was on his plate at all.
In a pinch, I'm now
confident that I could skin and gut a squirrel, and I suspect that
hidden in a pot of vegetable soup, neither of us would have any
complaints about squirrel meat. But for now, we're going to stick
to cultivated meat and venison, with the idea of rabbit still floating
around for later.
(As a side note, Lucy
was far more interested in the squirrel hide, head, and entrails than
she usually is in offal. Sounds like she, at least, has no
problem wrapping her head around eating squirrel.)
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
In my neck of the woods, we would call that squirrel a Ground Squirrel. They live in the ground and have an earthy flavor. Not favored in my home.
We also have, the silver tree squirrel that has a better meat flavor. You may want to check and see if you have silver squirrels in your area.
Mona, no ground squirrels over on Anna's side of the US. That's a grey squirrel if I'm not mistaken and a little larger than the ground squirrel.
Anna, do you have the red squirrels over there or just the grays?
Mona --- Heath is right --- no ground squirrels here. (Although some people call chipmunks "ground squirrels".)
Heath --- We don't have red squirrels (not quite high enough elevation), but do have the occasional fox squirrel, which is like the gray squirrel but bigger and redder.
You made them sound kinda yummy, even with your mental reservations. Squirrels cause such problems in our garden. When we dispatch one, another seems to take its place within days. We always joke about getting the crock pot ready.....but we haven't tried one yet. I tried rabbit for the first time last year and liked it, so there's a chance I would not mind squirrel. I might try it next spring; It feels kind of disrespectful wasting them.
This University of California site has some good info. about most effective time of year to control them: http://ucanr.org/sites/Ground_Squirrel_BMP/
Do you think resting the meat for 48 hrs. would make let the rigor pass like it does w/ chicken meat?
Paula B. --- If nothing else, I'll bet you could feed those squirrels to pets. Lucy went ga-ga over the parts we gave her. Since the bones aren't hollow like bird bones, you can feed the carcass whole once skinned and gutted. (And you might not even have to do that much preparation depending on your pet.)
I definitely think that letting the meat sit in the fridge for a couple of days would help with toughness. I don't know why I didn't do that --- too excited, maybe?
My mom used to cook squirrel and rabbit that dad brought home from a hunt. She would put it in the pressure cooker with tomatoes, onion and other seasonings. We would eat it with polenta (corn meal mush). Sometimes she would fry rabbit like chicken then finish it off in the pressure cooker. The pressure cooker made it very tender and tasty. This was the in the 50s & 60s when we had it regularly and I am not sure I would eat squirrel or rabbit today with all the toxins in the world. Domestically grown rabbit would be good I think but God knows what they are out there eating in the wild these days. But it sure was good back then.
New to reading you blog, enjoying it. Thanks, Nancy
Phil --- Sounds like you've eaten quite a few of those tree rats anyway.
Nancy --- In a wooded area like ours, I figure squirrel would be just as good for you as any other pastured meat. Sure, there are some aerial toxins that fall to the ground, but we're breathing those in all the time and eating them out of our garden. Now, if I lived in the city, that would be a different matter....
Hey sweetie,
So some of my friends in Texas are into eating squirrels. They've basically cut out most meat except what they hunt themselves -- which is a trick in suburban Abilene. Fortunately, their yard has a lot of squirrels. Want me to ask for their recipes? It turns my stomach, but they swear it's tasty and have fed squirrel to friends who say the same.
On another note, you mentioned feeding the carcase to Lucy. My dog book said not to give dogs any kind of bone -- hollow or otherwise -- because they can carry diseases. But it didn't specify whether this is only a problem with factory-raised buy-in-the-store meat. Or if it's just for seriously up-tight pet owners. Or what. But I've been good and done what the book says -- Rebecca only gets raw hide chew sticks from the pet store. (And of course, any disgusting thing she finds for herself and gnaws.) Any thoughts on this one?
Heather --- I really appreciate the recipe offer, but it was hard enough to trick Mark into trying squirrel the first time. I think it might be in his dry beans category --- I need to do some serious mental preparation before feeding it to him again.
About dogs and bones: I'm not sure about disease, but a search of the internet did suggest that bones could puncture intestines and cause a bacterial infection of the abdomen. However, another website notes: "Rawhide bones, green dental bones, and even pig ears have all been causes of intestinal obstruction in dogs as well. Though manufacturers of green dental bones claim the product to be entirely digestible, intact bones have been excised from dogs' intestines and have even caused a few canine deaths."
Personally, I do lots of things that are slightly dangerous but are healthy in the long term if the 1% chance of disaster doesn't kill me. I apply the same theory to pet feeding, so we give Lucy all bones except cooked poultry bones (where I think the percentages tip in the dangerous direction).
Mitsy --- I was trying to remember where I'd been reading about squirrels --- your blog!
I think I should have worked harder at mentally preparing Mark for the meat rather than springing it on him. The trouble is, I'm so empathic that when he doesn't like something, even if I liked it originally, I suddenly don't like it. No good, huh?
I had intended to comment on this post a while back, but hadn't gotten to it. I've eaten squirrels most of my life. When in high school, I spent innumerable hours hunting squirrel to the chagrin of my dad and step-mother. I'd often eat them after searing over an open fire. Not exactly the best of meals, but hey... I was a teenager.
Since then, we eat quite a bit of squirrel at my uncle's cabin in Mississippi. The best way I've found lately to cook them under primitive conditions is just to fry them with no batter in a bit of oil on a coleman stove. I find they're actually pretty good this way.
I couldn't imagine eating them boiled though... that is the absolute worst way I could think of to prepare a squirrel. I'd take a squirrel roasted over an open pit fire any day over boiled. I bet if you tasted the meat prepared in a different fashion you'd be more pleased. My only gripe about squirrels is the amount of effort that goes into a usually small amount of meat. Unless one has a ready supply of fox squirrels, there's not too much meat on the critters.
Oh man, I hate it when people shout the words "American" and "God" at me. What do politics and religion have to do with eating squirrel, anyway? It's like you're shoehorning your beliefs into a discussion where they do not belong, yelling at people who don't feel the way you do. I know it's a great way to get a lot of "likes" on Facebook, but what you don't tend to see when you do things like that is that it's also a great way to get a lot of people sighing and rolling their eyes at your behaviour. Yes, it's a great idea for people to know where their food comes from. It's an even better idea for them to at least know how to go about getting that food themselves. It's admirable if they actually do that.