They dont have fleas and mites in their squirrels around there? I'm pretty sure that as many tree rats that I have plugged, and eaten the vast majority of them, I haven't cuddled any of them and usually skinned them as fast as possible because the fleas can sense the body cooling within a minute or two and will jump ship onto any nearby warm body.

Nobody ever hear of bubonic plague?  Fucking Idiots.

Yeah, I had a relative contract Lymes.  Nasty.

opsec wrote:

GooberMcNutly wrote:

They dont have fleas and mites in their squirrels around there? I'm pretty sure that as many tree rats that I have plugged, and eaten the vast majority of them, I haven't cuddled any of them and usually skinned them as fast as possible because the fleas can sense the body cooling within a minute or two and will jump ship onto any nearby warm body.

Can't you just parboil them whole for 30 seconds or so before you skin them?   A serious if perhaps stupid question.

It takes about 15 seconds to skin a squirrel. One cut at the base of the tail and you peel it off to the paws in one pull. Cut them off and you are done and the fur is all wrapped up inside so it won't spoil the meat. The fleas don't have much of a chance to jump off onto me either. 

I usually carry a ziploc for the bodies and one for the furs when out hunting. It also helps to cool them quickly and that makes them taste much better.

My favorite new recipe:
Make a bed of couscous with 1/2 the water usually called for, pack into bottom of dutch oven.
Put 1 to 2 quartered squirrels over the top of the couscous.
Layer in fall vegetables (mushrooms, cabbage, peas, whatever you have)
Another 1-2 squirrels, more vegetables.
Sprinkle with Jamacian allspice, fresh parsely or a medium curry.
Add 1 cup chicken or beef stock, not too much.
Cover dutch oven and roast in 350 oven for about 1.5 hours. Let rest about 20 minutes before serving. It will stay hot in the oven.

I can't wait for fall!

GooberMcNutly wrote:

Cover dutch oven and roast in 350 oven for about 1.5 hours.

Varmit critter stew, huh? I never got squirrel close to edible and figured next time - if there ever is a next time - I'll try tire tenderized road kill first.

Last edited by choad (2011-05-10 09:10:54)

Squirrel actually is quite good.  You need to let it simmer for awhile, tough little bastards.

Tender and flavorful always depend on how it's killed and how it's processed. It's another reason I won't hunt with dogs or shoot anything on the run. It would taste terrible and I only kill to eat. Shot at rest and cooled quickly and it will taste wild and nutty and very flavorful. Killed while pumped full of adrenaline and/or allowed to cool slowly and it will be half rotten before you get it back to car.

Plus, I wouldn't shoot a squirrel that's been living off my neighbors old pizza crusts and bacon fat. Yeesh.

My secret is a cold dutch oven, put into a hot oven, allowed to get to nearly 425 in the first half hour, then cooled to 325 for the last hour. I didn't mention that above because it seemed like most wouldn't care for the extra step, but it really does help.

Serve with more couscous to soak up the gravy, some fire roasted tomatoes and red peppers or a wild rice pilaf. You just have to be careful to work out all of the little bones, so it's a dish best eaten slowly.

RMS was spider eggs in bubble yum. Lymes got nothing on babesiosis and ehrlichiosis. Up to 1% of the local population in my town gets tick borne disease each and every year.

Damn deer and their ticks. Cull the herd.

But Beverly McLaughlin, another committee member, said: “I really love the deer, and I can’t help it. My mother took me to see ‘Bambi’ when I was little.”

Although her husband had Lyme disease and babesiosis, she said that even if Nantucket had 400 cases last year,“you know what? That’s not an epidemic.”

A hunter on the committee, Kevin Madden, said many hunters wanted only modest increases in hunting, so that bagging deer would remain easy.

“I don’t want to see all the deer wiped out because some people get Lyme’s disease,” he said. “Let them live until I need them.”

Or is it the damn human hordes. Cull the herd

An epidemic of deer ticks and tick-borne diseases is not sweeping across the island and is not tied to an increase in the number of deer ticks.
Sam Telford, III, preeminent deer tick and related diseases researcher, issued this revelation ... said increasing numbers of people on the island their outdoor activities shoulder most of the blame.
“It’s not that there’s some great plague, it’s people-driven,” said Telford. “What has changed is people; the number of houses per area of Nantucket, the number of people coming over on the Steamship and how they choose to spend their time on Nantucket, those are the things that have changed. The basic conditions haven’t changed.”

Deer should be culled. Good food for those who like it, and fewer verminous carcasses in the water supply. Just the same, as we've learned from scape-goat scares such as giardiasis ("beaver" fever) - the dirtiest animals of all are us. Zoonosis is nothing compared to what we do to each other with our shit-stained hands and mouths. Nonetheless, as long as we congregate and form protein sinks there will be plagues of ticks and fleas and rats and mice and JWs and Mormons.