Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
The other day my four-year-old daughter asked if we could keep a live animal as a pet. She thought either a dog or a squirrel would do. Clearly she takes after her paternal grandfather, who once kept both a porcupine and a deer. While he was a Marine stationed out at Pickle Meadows.
Anyway, it's squirrel week. I'm sure you're all celebrating in your own way. Are any of you celebrating this way, though?
Any serious discussion of squirrel — which is what we do during Squirrel Week: discuss squirrels seriously — must address the subject of eating squirrels. For much of our country’s history, squirrels were not cute little critters seemingly put on Earth to amuse us with their antics. They were food. In some places, they still are.
That was in the Washington Post, where the columnist goes on to describe the skill required to properly kill squirrel. He explains that many parents used to train their children to hunt squirrel before moving on to larger animals. It includes this line: "... the real divide between old school and new school is whether or not you eat the brain."
My mother is one of the more refined women I know. She's reserved, always perfectly dressed, just all around lovely. So when she told me about how she used to eat squirrel -- during her childhood in Missouri -- I had a hard time believing it. Apparently she's not alone.
It almost makes me want to try some. Any tips for how to secure some squirrel meat or how to prepare it?
What other food should I try? My husband tells me that fried scorpion is good. The most adventurous I've gotten is scrapple.
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Jun '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
"Do you squirrel brains?" Only as an hors d'ouevre during the family's annual haggis fest.
Edited on April 12, 2012 at 5:38pmAug '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
Learn to speak squirrel in four easy steps!
Apr '11
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
As luck would have it, we were just planning on cooking some squirrel, purchased from here (sadly, a UK butcher, so not much good to most Ricochetti). Myself and a few of our friends have been hoping to catch a good restaurant squirrel for a while, but they keep being momentary menu items, so we're going to cook our own.
In terms of what else you should try, it's hard to give advice without knowing what you've eaten, what you like, what your budget is, what your cooking skills are like, how big a deal wine pairing is, and so on. For bugs, I always thought roaches and grasshoppers were better than scorpions, but neither is terribly flavorsome, so the preparation makes a big difference.
The one thing that I would strongly advise to people eating authentic Chinese food (assuming that the scorpions are an oriental deal): do not eat duck head. In fact, that deserves a comment of it's own.
Aug '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
Mmmmmm ... A meadow of pickles ...
Dec '11
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
Just one other minor point - the squirrels I ate as a child were reds, whereas grey squirrels (which I understand are far more common in the USA) may have a different intensity of flavour.
Dec '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
I used to think that I was an adventuresome eater: alligator, rattle snake, armadillo, but a friend set me straight. She has eaten chocolate covered cockroaches. No thanks.
Aug '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
After watching An Idiot Abroad, I'm gonna stay away from any "authentic" cuisine from anywhere, anytime.
Dec '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
How does one know if it authentic if one does not have an actual Chinese to advise?
Aug '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
My parents' kitty is also named Gorby! She's all white with a grey patch on her forehead, hence the name.
May '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
You usually see them growing on the edge of the water....
Aug '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
"...but screw PETA." - Jennifer Lawrence (of The Hunger Games fame)
Apr '11
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
When eating Peking Duck with the full ceremony, the body of the duck is only one portion of the meal. Alongside that, you have the feet, soup, heart, smallmeats, genitals, and head. A duck skull is mostly a sort of hollow honeycomb structure, like packing peanuts in a parcel. There is a small amount of brain, and there's the bill, but these represent a surprisingly small portion. The duck is cooked upside down, so the burned fat from the whole creature saturates the head, combining with the slightly charcoal-y taste of the burned honeycomb skull.
I'm pretty adventurous with food, and have found good sea cucumber, pleasant cartilage stews, etc., but having to eat this at a formal dinner with a couple of senior party members was far and away the worst moment of my time in China. The taste remained for the whole evening, as the fat coated every part of my mouth and throat. Worse, it resulted in uncontrollable belching, which re-coated any cleansed portions.
Apr '11
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
In an attempt to relieve this, I took a swig of fairly pure cheap alcohol. This stripped some the fat from the sides of my mouth, causing it to form a ball in the middle. This was a bizarre feeling, as taking the very thin liquid into an apparently empty mouth should not, intuitively, result in a mouth filled with chewiness. This feeling is replaced shortly afterwards with one of horror and renewed retching. That horror and accompaniments, however, is well worth it. If you ever discover that you have accidentally eaten duck head, or anything remotely similar, I cannot recommend to you enough that you follow it up, immediately, with copious quantities of strong alcohol. 56% ABV from a bottle that cost roughly a quarter for 8 ounces was pretty much perfect for the job.
Apr '11
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
Foxman
How does one know if it authentic if one does not have an actual Chinese to advise? · 12 minutes ago
I cannot imagine anyone from the West, absent actual Chinese advice, deciding that duck head was a good idea to eat. This is not primary advice, but secondary, ie., when to ignore the advice you're given.
Apr '11
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
Misthiocracy
After watching An Idiot Abroad, I'm gonna stay away from any "authentic" cuisine from anywhere, anytime. · 17 minutes ago
There are a lot of really lovely surprises out there. I've still not found really good Donkey meat in the West (possibly I need to spend more time with Peruvians), but that would probably be my recommendation for untasted meats if Mollie were feeling adventurous; most meats have a fairly similar taste to each other, but donkey can be concentrated into a wonderfully strong flavor. Ostrich would be my safe meat recommendation.
May '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
One episode of "Only in America" with Larry the Cable Guy featured a squirrel hunt and feast. Seeing it on TV was close enough for me!
May '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
I know this is supposed to be one of our high-brow intellectual discussions designed to intimidate the newbies - but really, don't we all just leave the brains for the army of zombie squirrels running loose?
(Disturbing image not inserted here)
May '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
You should tune into my husband's new favorite show Duck Dynasty. One episode we watched featured squirrel hunting and the matriarch of the family expressing her enthusiasm for squirrel brains.
Apr '12
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
Mollie, I just joined Ricochet so I could comment on this thread!
One of my fondest memories of my grandfather is eating squirrel with him. It was special because 1) I was the only one brave enough to share in said feast and 2) Papo was paralyzed from the waist down; he hunted on crutches. Squirrel was perfectly sized game, and he cooked it up low and slow in a rich brown gravy laden with rosemary. It was served atop Mamo's mashed potatoes.
My grandparents were real "boostraps" folk. After Papo's legs were crushed by a runaway truck, they realized he wasn't going to be able to farm. They left KY for OH so he could work on an assembly line.
Once they got settled, they started helping the rest of the family move. From shacks to the suburbs in less than one generation because it never crossed their minds to expect anyone else to support them.
Papo's favorite suburban pasttime? Squirrel hunting. Every time I see a squirrel, I think of Papo... and of his very patient neighbors :)
Dec '10
Re: Do You Eat Squirrel Brains?
RetroGeek: They left KY for OH so he could work on an assembly line.
Once they got settled, they started helping the rest of the family move.· 6 minutes ago
A friend from Louisville (pronounced Lullville, or something like that), told me that in Kentucky the children are taught the four R’s: Reading riting, rithmatic and the road to Dayton.