Tree Rats

Fried squirrel. Squirrel stew. BBQ squirrel. Squirrel and dumplings. Baked squirrel. Squirrel enchiladas. Squirrel chill. Squirrel cacciatore. Squirrel fricassee. Just how many ways are there to cook tree rats?

All the above recipes can be found on the internet, and I have tried many of them. But the best squirrel I ever ate was way back in the woods by Germany Creek. Joe and I had been camping for four days and had been eating nothing but the C-rations he brought and some loaf bread and peanut butter and jelly I supplied.

I had my .22 along for snake control and decided to shoot a squirrel one afternoon. We boiled that critter in my mess kit pot in creek water. No salt, no seasoning, no nothing added. But the meat was the first solid meat we had had, and when that juice was sopped up with the bread it was fantastic.

I was 16 at he time and had been eating squirrel all my life. Back in the late 1950s and early 60s when I was growing up, it was a rite of passage for boys to go squirrel hunting. From the time I was eight years old I was roaming the fall woods looking for targets in the trees for my .22 or .410. And I killed a bunch of them.
It was an unbreakable rule we ate everything we killed back then, so I had to skin and gut the squirrels when I got home and mom would cook them up the next day, after soaking them overnight in saltwater in the refrigerator. And she could cook them in several ways.

One of my favorite meals was fried squirrel with gravy, served over hot homemade biscuits.
She cooked chicken the same way and both were good. And the whole family ate the squirrels, with no complaining. We were just happy to have lots to eat.

I still kill a lot of squirrels and eat them each fall and winter. They gnawed into my attic so I keep a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with #6 shot by the door and shoot every one I see. I would rather shoot them with my .22 but there are just too many houses around for it.

Recently I smoked a squirrel and it was delicious! I put it in the smoker with lots of hickory for a couple of hours and the smoky flavor was great. I ate it as a snack rather than a meal because it was so good I ate the whole thing when “sampling” it!

I don’t really like cleaning them but it is pretty easy. When I was a kid pulling the skin off was a chore, and as I get older it seems to be getting harder again. But so far it is not too much trouble to be worth it.

One critter I ate was very good, but I will never try to skin one again. I shot a beaver in one of my ponds several years ago and decided to eat it. I didn’t think I would ever get it skinned. I had to cut off every tiny bit of the skin, there was no pulling it off. Starting at the lower legs I slowly trimmed between the meat and skin until I got the back half done. At that point I decided the front part didn’t have enough meat to mess with.

That was the reddest meat I have ever seen. I boiled it first, then floured and sautéed it in olive oil. Then I put it in a pan with potatoes, onions and carrots and baked it. It tasted just like a beef pot roast to me. From now own, since I can say I ate a beaver, I will buy a beef pot roast!

Gar also are tasty but very hard to skin. You can’t scale them, their scales are like armor plating. I was shown how to use tin snips and cut up the back, then peel the skin and scales to the side and cut out the meat down the backbone. It is tedious, hard work.

The meat sautéed in butter tastes like Florida lobster to me, kinds of chewy a little with some slight smoky fish flavor. But I found an easier way to cook them. I cut one gar into foot long chunks with a hack saw after gutting it then put it on the grill.

When it was cooked the skin and scales peeled off easily and the meat was even better! From now on, that is how I will cook them. If you run trotlines, jugs or bank hooks with live bait you will catch a bunch of them and you can also shoot them with a bow!

Give some unusual critter a try. You might find it tasty!