Squirrel: The Eco-Friendly Meat du Jour?
Bushy-tailed and apparently low-fat, squirrels are the haute new mammal to find on dinner plates. According to the Guardian, hunters cannot shoot the American grey squirrel fast enough to keep up with demands. "Ugh, honey, squirrel again for dinner?" Yes, that phrase might become more popular as consumers discover the furry rodent's small carbon footprint and pleasant taste, hovering somewhere between lamb and duck.
Available to many, squirrels have great environmental credentials given their minimal food miles. Ideally, you want the fattened-up ones from the countryside though, not the scrawny one scaling your backyard tree. Squirrel meat is already popular in the Deep South and referenced in older copies of The Joy of Cooking as a nice, tender alternative to rabbit or chicken.
As a Beatrix Potter reader, this will take some getting used to.
Previously
In Videos: Squirrel Melts
In Videos: Explainer: Can You Eat Squirrels?
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11 Comments:
The squirrels that live in Madison Sq. Park next to the Shake Shack are anything but scrawny. If I had to choose an NYC squirrel to eat, it would be one of those. That would be the Kobe of squirrel meat. Now please excuse me, I have to go throw up now.
simon at 6:07PM on 05/12/08
I would certainly throw up after eating a city squirrel. Our country varmints aren't fat enough yet, and you should wait until after the babies aren't feeding anymore and everyone is fat on acorns and nuts (and my bird seed) in the late fall. Just think, like the acorn and mast-fed wild boar of Spain and Italy you could make tiny little squirrel hams, gamey little sausages, or spit roast an entire little guy (I would wrap in bacon) over a wood fire. Hillbilly haute cuisine; something we may all have to re-learn with food prices on the rise.
BreweRepublic at 6:29PM on 05/12/08
City squirrel, probably gross; city pigeon? Horrifying.
ChickenFinger5 at 6:35PM on 05/12/08
Squirrels are just rats with good PR.
GingerCM at 7:12PM on 05/12/08
Even the plumpest looking squirrel has very little meat on it. Most of what you see is just puffed out fur. You need several to make a meal and even then its not much meat. But if you bag a few the way to cook 'em is to pan fry them like chicken. Just don't eat the brain as consumption has been linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
martij at 7:32PM on 05/12/08
Why not eat free-range squirrel? People hunt doves and rabbits and the squirrel seems like a middle ground between the two.
I'm just waiting for the day I see them piled up at the greenmarket for $10/pound like ramps, another once-disdained "hillbilly" food.
butterface at 1:05AM on 05/13/08
Eddie doesn't eat squirrel anymore since he found out they were high in cholesterol.
eatorama at 1:05AM on 05/13/08
Not bad really. I've had some pretty decent squirrel stew.
feep at 7:52AM on 05/13/08
It seems our quest and desire for different types of meat never ends.
We're eating the squirrels now.
Humans are lucky there are so many different animal species on the planet, otherwise we'd probably be eating each other.
FastFoodCritic at 10:33AM on 05/13/08
The three bites of squirrel can be served as the main entree after the chipmunk amuse bouche.
PerkyMac at 10:49AM on 05/13/08
hahaha thanks eatorama, wasn't sure if anyone was going to quote that fantastic line :)
Sarahrm at 2:00PM on 05/13/08