Ike's picture of fried squirrel got me thinking about this. If all or most of your meat comes from the store as is true for most of us these days we are really limited on variety of meat and fowl. Beef, pork, chicken, and turkey are about it. Sheep in many countries but not much in the U.S. I grew up in a family of hunters. Squirrel and rabbit were common fare. At times we also ate raccoon, deer, antelope, elk, quail, duck, bullfrogs and crawdads. I hadn't given it much thought before but it's amazing how limited the choices are for most of us.
I get quite squeamish when I think about eating some of those animals you talk of and know I could never do it. A part of me would really like to be a vegetarian, but my efforts have never lasted more than about a year because I grew up eating meat and lack the willpower to change. I could never eat anything I'd seen while it was alive though.
I grew up in a family of hunters too. We never ate squirrel or frogs, but we did have a good supply of venison (deer), duck, geese, quail, and partridge, and sometimes rabbit, although I didn't care much for rabbit. I tried bear meat once when my brother shot one, but we all pretty much agreed that the taste wasn't worth making a habit of. If I were starving, yeah -- but not otherwise. We also raised chickens, geese, guinea hens, and some ugly creatures known as turkens, which are a type of chicken, as well as pigs and cows.
I cannot speak for myself but my husband is a son of a hunter so expect him to relish wild boar meat, deer meat (venison?) and birds of almost all kinds. There is a restaurant here that serves exotic food where I was introduced to fried frog legs. Dipped in gin for the marinade, the crispy frog legs tasted like chicken wings. The deer meat is okay, I think it tastes better than beef. And how about the stewed Boa meat? no, we didn't sample it, there were no takers in our group, hahahaaa. Although there are no squirrels here, we see them as rodents like rabbits so I guess it is not much palatable here unlike the turkey or the quail. In our province in Pampanga, it is not rare for people to eat rabbit's meat. But I still have to sample it.
I like beef from the supermarket. I haven't eaten the things you hunters catch and eat. Rabbit is a delicacy and was eaten by my Grandfather, but he did not hunt for it. My Grandfather had lots of friends and sometimes they'd give him things like raw rabbit. I was too young then, but there is a story in our family that is remembered fondly. My Aunt my mother's sister did not know it was rabbit at the time she ate it. Well the rest isn't important, but we are going to have a potroast this Thanksgiving with cooked vegetables like onion, carrots and maybe celery if it's on sale. My friends caught pheasant on Molokai and they eat what they catch, not me though give me supermarket food any day.
@Krissttina Isobe, from what I know, that pheasant is a bird. I just have no clear idea if it is a big or small bird. When my husband went to his last hunting trip sometime in the 1990s, he promised me to bring home the trophy. That hunting trip is a competition. They were more than 10 participants for the overnight affair in the forest of a nearby province. The objective is to shoot birds or even other animals but their focus is on birds. Their guns are air rifles only, the so called pellet guns. My husband was the winner, he brought home 4 birds and had cut the feet for the trophy. Those small feet are his trophies. And the birds were dressed already with salt to preserve it overnight. He fried it in the pan and got a beer in the fridge. I partook of the bird and it tasted good. After that, we bought a pack of quails in the supermarket and fried it, the same as the hunted birds. But quails are not that tasty, just gamey.
We always had venison, chicken, squirrel and partridge available. My elders were hunters and I did my share too.
I'm not a HUGE meat eater, I prefer fish, but I do buy organic meat from the shop on the farm where they raise their own livestock . It's significantly more expensive than at the supermarket but it's organic, it's got no mileage on it...and it's fresh as it can possibly be . I just roasted a stuffed veal joint tonight, and it's on the counter cooling now, it's as succulent as a tender chicken, and full of flavour . I'll let it cool and put it in the fridge overnight , then carve it tomorrow for dinner. deeeelicious!!
hmmmm.........And to think, if Ben Franklin had it his way, Turkey would have been the U.S. bird instead of the Bald Eagle. Just a curious note: My wife once read me a clip and I wonder how many would agree to a certain college students remark (near quote) " Instead of killing animals for meat, we should simply go to the grocery store. They have all kinds of meat there." Obviously said by the rare species: homosapien blondus clueleus. tada dat (rim shot)
Where we live, up in Northern Ontario, hunting is part of the way of life and we all look forward to it.. Almost every year, I get venison, moose meat (and lots of it), beaver, and black bear meat..... No part of the killed animal goes to waste as they make minced meat from the rest of the animal.. With the mince, we make meatloaf, burgers on the BBQ as well as casseroles.. You must admit that hunting controls the population of certain species such as bears and moose.. There would be an overpopulation of these otherwise.. It also gives us meat for the winter.. Our ancestors lived like that..
My late husband loved to hunt and went every November in the US. I even went with him once to Canada, think it was a 16 hr drive from Chicago to a place called LaTuque ( not sure anymore of the spelling or name). I did catch a huge fish there, a golden Pike....the owners of the place we were staying cooked it for us and it was delicious. Anyway, i dont like venison but knew how to cook the venison or other wild game he shot....I never ate it though.
Chrissy.. I have been to La Tuque many many times.. It's quite a drive from Trois Rivieres, (3 Rivers), Grande Mere, and Shawinigan, and following the river all the way..