Expert: Keith Patton - 12/4/2008

Question
I have recently been reading some older game books.  Several of them have recipies for animals that I would never have thought of as a game animal.
Of course some of this comes from the area of the country I live in (North West).  I do not know of any body who eats groundhog here.  We shoot lots of them though.
I figured I might as well go ahead and give some of them a try.  My concern is with cooking.  I have hunted deer and elk all my life, so I am comfortable with cooking these species of game animals.  But what about these different kinds of smaller game.  Is there any type of disease or parasite I can get from eating a groundhog?  What about a raccoon or beaver?  I assume that cooking something in the crock pot for a day on high will kill most any parasites.  Are there any animals that one should not eat?  I ask because one of my older game books states that the authors philosophy is that if it has fur it can be eaten.  Some recipies for badger, muskrat and maybe even otter can be found.  Do you have any comments or any books you can point me towards?

Answer
Jim:

I guess any small rodent, which is what most of the smaller game are, could carry something, including rabbits.  I have cut open rabbits that have been crawling with parisites, so use you judgement when dressing out the critters.  If the meat doesn't look right don't use it.  For instance, some parasites have a cyst stage that may be present in the muscle tissue that might be visible.  If the gut is full of worms that might be a warning too.

I have cooked beaver (the tail is the part you want but takes special steps to get the hard outer covering off to get to the muscle underneath), racoon, groundhog, badger and turtle.

Thorough cooking is the key.  I don't think any of these warrant eating rare...LOL...too greasy.  In fact I trimmed mine as close as possible then slow cooked them outside on a webber with a drip pan to defat them some more before using them in any recipe.

Books: The older editions of The Joy of Cooking available at used book stores has directions for dressing and recipes for most of the species mentioned above.

The newer editions deleted these entries.  I wrote to the publisher (a new york company) about it.  Their attitude was, "nobody eats these things anymore."  The point that it was American Heritage, was lost on them...new york pukes...too egocentric for me.  The world revolves around them, so they think.  The probably take pride in the fact that THEY were the ones attacked on 9/11 and not someone else.  It only went to reinforce in their minds that they are the center of the universe.

I can't think of any small game that aren't safe.  Nutria, the famed water rat of S. America is becoming a problem here in Texas and Louisiana and that state is actually promoting it as an alternative meat and trying to get restaurants to serve it.  No season or limits on its taking either.  Opossum is another that can be eaten it you can get past the looks.  I have also eaten Armadillo down in Bolivia.  They cooked it in the shell by splitting it lengthwise gutting it then laying it split side down on the grill.  We ate it right out of the shell.  I haven't tried it stateside yet.