Reader Food Critic Makes Case For Eating Squirrel
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Aug 16, 2012 5:30PM
The cover story to this week’s Reader is a wonderful piece by their lead food critic Mike Sula about the history of eating squirrel that includes extensive first-hand research on the subject culminating in a September 2011 dinner where Sula served dinner to selected guests that was one of the tightest-kept secrets of the Chicago food community.
Sula’s interest in the subject of eating squirrel began when he tried in vain to keep them away from his tomato plants. His research into squirrel as a protein included going on a squirrel hunt in Indiana, learning how to skin and dress a squirrel and discovering that the rodent really does taste like chicken. I know from first-hand experience: I often accompanied my stepfather on squirrel hunts with his family in Tennessee. It does make a tasty dish, preferably fried or slow cooked so the meat falls off the bone.
Getting past the shock factor, Sula makes a convincing case for hunting squirrel as a food source, framed against the backdrop of the struggling economy; food insecurity; the city’s antagonistic approach to food carts and trucks; tough policing of shared kitchen spaces; and attempts at banning chickens. Sula does admit to some reticence of the diet of the urban squirrel, which is predominantly that of a scavenger. But it doesn’t stop him from theorizing about an urban barter system with squirrel meat as a commodity. And he tapped into something with the dinner; everyone he invited accepted his invitation.
(Disclosure: I was one of Sula’s invited guests to the dinner and one of the first in line for squirrel brains.)
Sula has written some Beard-worthy stuff here that you should check out.