Mighty huntress.
Posted on 03/03/2018 9:37:24 PM PST by nickcarraway
Some people in Britain hate grey squirrels enough to devour them. With the UK’s biggest purveyor of fried chicken in crisis, perhaps we should be cooking up our furry feral friends
ne cold Sunday morning last month, I visited Pow Hill, a glorious moorland thick with pine trees that overlooks the Derwent reservoir, north-west of Durham. In a clearing, three amateur wildlife photographers, in full camouflage gear, sat on plastic bags and watched a red squirrel race across the bracken.
As I watched the little fella leap from log to tree, the sunlight dancing across its tail, naturally my thoughts turned to its grey cousin and what he would taste like, deep-fried, seasoned, with a little mayonnaise.
I didn’t realise how much people hate grey squirrels until I came to Pow Hill. They hate them because they blame them for the demise of the red squirrel. They hate them so much that they eat them. Still, squirrel is low in fat and low in air miles and the internet is full of recipes. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has been doing it in plain sight for years, and squirrel has long appeared on seasonal menus at the super-influential St John restaurant in London.
The whole red-versus-grey saga is rather sad. Greys were brought over here from the US by Cheshire banker Thomas Brocklehurst (who released a pair into the wild in 1876) and, for a while, they were all the rage in high society. But they eat bark voraciously and harbour squirrel parapoxvirus (harmless to humans) that doesn’t harm greys but kills reds
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Squirrel is good eating, and they provide good marksmanship training.
I prefer fox squirrel just because they’re bigger and fatter... but greys are more plentiful.
Mom would fry them and then bake them in a light BBQ sauce with beer.
One of our friends recalls his mom making squirreletti witht he ones he brought home.
So these are conservative squirrels? You said they were your FRiends...
Kentucky Fried squirrel poppers...
Let them eat squab...
I enjoy watching them run around in my yard! I have a bi-racial couple, a Fox squirrel and a little black girlie squirrel .
If your KFC Pot Pie (which are delicious) has a large furry tail sticking out of it, you can assume it’s squirrel.
Exactly. Ate them growing up and could eat them again if the SHTF.
Offer treats on the back of your hand—NOT your fingers. Grey Squirrels do not intend to bite you, but their teeth can draw blood: there are reports of rabid squirrels. Eating of shot squirrels is fraught with mentions of Mad-Cow Disease (https://www.greysquirrel.net/brain.html and NYTs).
There is a Red Squirrel species local to New England: smaller, very vocal, and sporting a short nose. They are especially destructive, giving Greys and Chipmunks a bad name. I would suggest hunting only the genuine Red Squirrel species, and not the various Grey Squirrel hybrids/subspecies. I make multiple partial slices using a wire-stripper on a 22 LR bullet to assure an instant kill. (Snake-shot might also work). The lead portion of the cartridge is longer as a result—and has to be chambered individually—but any good contact with this "spaghetti-bullet" is fatal to the squirrel.
Slow-moving Fox Squirrels, until 2015, were an endangered species. In my long lifetime, I've seen only two Fox Squirrels (Kissimmee, FL). The DelMarVa Fox Squirrel is probably extinct.
Gonna be pretty hard to kill squirrels with a butter knife.
The new Thanksgiving feast. A stuffed squirrel inside of a chicken, inside of a duck, inside of a turkey.
John Madden worthy.
My uncle had a .22 rifle & a 16 gauge shotgun. My aunt made the best fried squirrel & home fried potatoes I ever knew.
My grandpa kept his straight razors in squirrel hides turned inside out.
“I would never purposely hurt or knowingly eat one.”
My either. I have tons around my house, and they are entertaining - and smart.
Been eating squirrel all my life. I was raised in Oregon starting in 1950 and ended up in Texas by 1956. My father was a hunter and most of what we ate came from hunting. Elk, deer, antelope, lot’s of rabbits and plenty of squirrels. Ate turkeys, quail, dove and even feral pigeons found out in the pastures. Now we tend to eat a ton of venison (Wife and I can go through 3 deer a year) depending on whether either of us get an elk. We also eat quite allot of feral hogs (sub 100 pounders). Still love my quail and rabbit and a good meal of fried squirrel is always a treat. Even though I’ve been ranching for about as long as I’ve lived in Texas I still rarely eat beef. About the only thing we go to town for is household good and veggies. Never been much of a farmer but I am putting in a pretty good size garden this year, wife wants to take a shot at canning. My storm cellar is 20 x 22 ft and should we actually need it for a tornado we won’t need that much room. I’ve started building shelves for the canned product. Back on the subject of squirrels this area doesn’t have a ton but they do need to be thinned out from time to time. Break out the pan!
Speaking as someone who has eaten fried squirrel I say hell yes! And while We’re talking about it, why doesnt the various fast food places that have breakfast biscuits have fatback biscuits. DAMN GOOD EATING!!
Agree. Something has changed at KFC...i used to love it. Now it seems very greasy and has a lot more “coating”.
A rare gray squirrel every now and then.
My friend says she feeds about 30 black squirrels every day.
At a park where I play softball, there’s gray squirrels, black squirrels, fox squirrels and the smaller red squirrels. The little red squirrels are aggressive as all get out, they’re constantly chasing the other ones all over the place.....
Guinea Pig is considered a delicacy in Peru. They cook it with the heads on, slit and laid out on a platter.
These would be easier to breed, harvest, and prepare.
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