Suspicions Confirmed
 

xxx

Sorry Bruce but what suspicions confirmed....? Maybe since I'm from Michigan that's the reason....:whistle:

Funny... is doesn't say anything about deer, ducks, geese, grouse, woodcock... I've heard those can be eaten too.

xxxx

I've eaten my fair share of beaver, but I found woodchuck a bit stinky to handle when butchering. Of course, some beavers are a bit stinky too.

Sorry Bruce, has nothing to do with the UP :shock: UP is only a third of the state. So what are you saying or telling ?

Here I've been living all these years thinking only people on the Eastern Shore of Maryland ate Muskrat!! My Grandfather, Father and Uncles trapped hundreds if not thousands of Muskrat in Minnesota, but never thought of eating one. My Father was blown away when he saw them in a butcher shop on the Eastern Shore when he came Goose hunting with me in 1981.

Best meat I ever ate was some beaver done up like round steak with gravy at a wild game feed in Reinbeck,Iowa.My dad once fooled me into eating some rattlesnake and that wasn't too bad until I learned what it was.

i forget who said

"the next time someone says - doesn't that taste like chicken? IT DAMN WELL BETTER BE CHICKEN"

I tripped over a web page that had a lot of recipes for crow.

I picked up the "L.L. Bean Game & Fish Cook Book" over 30 years ago. Great book - recipes for EVERYTHING in it. It also has tips on butchering, what to stock for camp - even recipes for coffee & desserts that can be made in camp.

If you can find one, I suggest you buy it !

What DT said, GREAT book!

You have to consider the time that these receipts were published. 1943 was the height of WWII meat was rationed and scarce so about any edible protein source was a delicacy. My Great Grandfather had operated a butcher shop before migrating to Southern California after WWI and he and his cronies would travel the Catalina and Avalon islands and harvest feral goats to keep meat on the table.

Some 60 years ago I gave my Mother a Christmas gift of George and Berthe Herter's "Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices". She smiled, thanked me and put the two volume set away. When she passed away, I recovered the gift and still enjoy reading it and have tried a few recipes.

There never were near as many women in the far west, where Bruce likes to tell everybody he's from. Now he's explained it, those boys out there don't eat beaver......

DLH

Each summer, at the fundraiser for the Lovells, MI Historical Society, the theme is "Beaver, Beer and Banjos". The beaver is made into a delicious stew, which some creep from the Guvmnt said we couldn't sell, because it wasn't from a guvmnt approved supplier (the beavers were trapped to help improve our trout streams). We solved the problem by giving the stew away, and placing a donation jar at the end of the line.

Thanks for the chuckle this scene from an old movie came to mind, Police Squad, "Nice Beaver" :rotf:

And yet again the Kansas Cowboy Ambulance Chaser (Originally from the Land of Fruits and Nuts) has deleted his own thread.

Beaver is some of the finest eating there is. BBQ'd ribs taste just like grey or fox squirrel, which isn't surprising since beaver live on the bark from birch, aspen, cottonwood, alder, willow, etc. The tails are supposed to be tasty when roasted on wood coals; can't confirm that unfortunately. You want to know how to cook even possum just buy a Joy of Cooking; it's ALL in there.

i have never eaten beaver but my brother does he says its realkly good...i ve eaten raccoon its good but no possum or roadkill for me...going saturday to try alligator...charlie

Baby alligator tastes just like beaver and is really really good. I brought home 'still warm' roadkill raccoon once that my grandmother made a great stew out of. You couldn't tell what it was; she was good that way. That lady could have made a stew out of an old tire and it would have been good. When I told my sister that the stew we were eating was made from the coon that I had mounted in an aggressive position and which sitting on the far end of the dining table she dropped her spoon and ran into the bathroom and puked. A great story that I love to remind her of to this day!

Some of us do... or did 'til they all dried up!

B

Having trapped and skinned hundreds of raccoons, I'd have to be very close to starvation to try eating one. The discarded skinned coon carcasses are not touched by any type of scavengers; not even the ravens, which I have observed eating a dead skunk. A friend of mine from Alaska once told me that beaver is "good" eating, but then he went on to say, "but not near as good as bear". Having eaten bear and considering what it tastes like, I passed on the idea of cooking a beaver.

Black bear is delicious.

I grind my black bear half and half with venison and make it into smokies, and its fine. Pure bear smokies or germans taste a bit course to me. I once ground a yearling bear into hamburger and cooked it in chili, which was quite good. Other bear recipes I have tried did not suite my tastes.

A trapper friend of mine regularly dines on beaver. I've eaten the back-strap several times and while it's a country mile away from venison, it does emit a rather woody, piquant after glow that to me anyway, tastes very much like owl and crow. :whistle:

We had a friend who used to hunt coons on our old place near Savannah. Dad asked him one time to fix him up a coon so he could see how it tasted. Our friend said "Can't do that Mr. Morrison, you'd like it so much you wouldn't let me come back." Well, we got someone else to cook some. I have tried it and they can have them all as far as I am concerned.

I've eaten a lot of fur bearing animals over the years. They've all got their good points and bad points. The trick on anything like that is to only eat the smaller ones. Big coons, big possums, big anything with hair on it, are usually a little rough.

Downriver Southeast Michigan Michigan, Port Clinton Ohio area, and around Mitchells Bay Ontario all have big muskrat suppers in the fall. The catholic folks have a special dispensation from Rome, they can eat muskrat on Friday because it's an animal that lives in the water like a fish.

A memorable meal for me was the time Roger Giles got a big bait of muskrat meat from an old timer down in Port Clinton. He, his wife, Apple Jack, and I all made a good meal on it. He stewed it in creamed corn, then discarded the corn, and it was as good as anything like that I've had.

Destry has the right idea. Beaver is for those who like it, it should never be smoked, braised, roasted, or anything else that involves heat. It is best consumed raw, and I hear midwesterners have a very limited supply. Groundhog is out of the question, as it stinks when gutted.