Any of you like to eat raccoons?

It's OK. Grandma made a point of teaching us grandkids "depression food" back when I was young. I've had it stewed, roasted and pan fried with onions and mushrooms. I found it to be a little rich and greasy. I think it would make good sausage or burger mixed with lean pork. The grease renders well and doesn't give a strong rancid taste. It can be used as a lard substitute when properly processed.

My son makes a mean raccoon stew.

I've had BBQ racoon. Was really tasty.

I have had it back in the early eighties when I had a pair of Bluetick Coon Hounds. I had it in spegetti sauce, in stew, baked and a coiple of other ways. I had people who wanted any that were about mid-sized.
They are greasy, the fat is built up between the musles unlike beef where the fat is marbled in the musle.
We would either par-boil it or semi bake it to render the fat off of it first.
The fat isn't nasty like deer fat.
It really isn't that bad.

My mother had a cookbook that had this recipe in it:

http://alfafarmers.org/local-flavor...-list-january-11/coon-a-la-delta#.XxWzeud7lhE

I would try it but I'm not gonna clean and cook one to find out.

Random 8 said:

It's OK. Grandma made a point of teaching us grandkids "depression food" back when I was young.

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When I was about 12 years old I was hooked on quail hunting. On Thanksgiving day my Uncle took me to his farm and we hunted quail all morning. The quail were so thick we would jump a covey and before we could get to the singles we would jump another covey. During the morning my Uncle shot a racoon and took it to the farmhouse. His wife loved wild game and she specialized in cooking large river turtles. My folks always warned me about eating anything at her house because you never knew what it was. My Aunt cooked that racoon and for the evening meal we had fried quail and baked racoon. I don't remember what it tasted like but I had to take a few bites or I would have been brow beat severely.

It is on my list to try. Crossed off pigeon last year and was very impressed with that so I'm optimistic. Hopefully I'll cross off crow this next season as well. Last season got one with a new hunter and he was so excited to try it I let him have our only one. He over cooked it to a hockey puck so still not sure if crow can be tasty.

My gun clubs , before state regulations made it difficult, annual game dinner often included raccoon. The cooks tended to base all the meat dishes on a tomato recipe, so most of those tasted pretty much the same. The meat was indistinguishable basically in most dishes.

I tried it years ago.
It was cooked in a crock pot and drowned in BBQ sauce. Pretty much anything is edible that way.
If I recall correctly it was a bit stringy.

Cooked in a smoker with a pan to catch the grease is a method that works. I've had it but knowing what they eat tends to make me less than "enthusiastic" about it.
(I feel the same about crab and lobster as well...)

Dunno. Never tried any.

I'm game, though.

I have two broad categories for meat: good on its own and good in chili. Raccoon is good in chili.

somethingbenign said:

It is on my list to try. Crossed off pigeon last year and was very impressed with that so I'm optimistic. Hopefully I'll cross off crow this next season as well. Last season got one with a new hunter and he was so excited to try it I let him have our only one. He over cooked it to a hockey puck so still not sure if crow can be tasty.

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I have to ask, how much meat do you get off a pigeon.. And I am not making light of them because in Europe Squab is eaten alot as a delicacy. But how much eating do you get.. ?? Always wondered that in the War movies when the German soldier was stealing the kids pigeons for dinner, what are you getting per pigeon.??

It would depend on what breed of pigeons you butcher to eat.
I will be buying some squabbing pigeons that are half sgain the size of the regular street pigeons. There are numerous breeds of squabbing pigeons. You can google them and see the different breeds.
I will be buying.either squabbing homers or squabbing kings.

I've looked at a few recipes for raccoon. Most of them recommend boiling it first to remove excess fat/grease.
It's on my list of things to try, but it's not very high up on the list.

I like it smoked and young ones are good fried but the older ones are tough and tangy if not parboiled first then fried and finished off in a pressure cooker. Crows on the other hand if they are killed in warm weather and quickly cleaned and chilled then cooked promptly could solve the worlds hunger problem as a single crow will feed a family of 12 and still have plenty of leftovers.

der Teufel said:

I've looked at a few recipes for raccoon. Most of them recommend boiling it first to remove excess fat/grease.
It's on my list of things to try, but it's not very high up on the list.

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I once came across a very elaborate recipe for bean and raccoon stew which ended with "now eat the beans and throw away the raccoon".

indy1919a4 said:

I have to ask, how much meat do you get off a pigeon.. And I am not making light of them because in Europe Squab is eaten alot as a delicacy. But how much eating do you get.. ?? Always wondered that in the War movies when the German soldier was stealing the kids pigeons for dinner, what are you getting per pigeon.??

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More than a dove and just a tad more than a quail. We served it alongside a handful of quail and one pideon was enough to feed a grown man with a hearty side of veggies and potatoes. If you wanted to get full on just the meat I'd guess about two birds per person would do it. They are by far the easiest animal to clean though so that really makes up for any lack of meat on them.

somethingbenign said:

More than a dove and just a tad more than a quail. We served it alongside a handful of quail and one pideon was enough to feed a grown man with a hearty side of veggies and potatoes. If you wanted to get full on just the meat I'd guess about two birds per person would do it. They are by far the easiest animal to clean though so that really makes up for any lack of meat on them.

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Moocho thanks

Arkansas Paul said:

I tried it years ago.
It was cooked in a crock pot and drowned in BBQ sauce. Pretty much anything is edible that way.

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I don’t believe I have ever had it, but my Grandmother could make anything taste good fried. Back then everything was put to use, lots of little soap bars were made into a ball, cow tongue was made into soup, and my Grandmother made the best fried liver on the planet.

Funny thing about what you remember, I can remember an quiet argument between my Grandparents about me eating the sugars snap peas out of the deep freeze, the only time I ever heard my Grandmother complain about me eating vegetables. I over heard her talking to my Grandfather about it once, he just said, “Well, he’s finally eating vegetables....”

My Grandpa was a big coon hunter. He more did it for sport and I still have some of his trophies for coon hunting in my reloading room.

My mom said she and her siblings ate it from time to time. She remembers the "plink" sound of lead shot hitting the dinner plate while everyone was trying to eat it. Like watermelon seeds. Lol.

I've never tried it. But I suppose it's like with most creatures. Know what your doing....and deep fry it. Or throw it in some stew. Should taste ok.

.38 Special said:

I once came across a very elaborate recipe for bean and raccoon stew which ended with "now eat the beans and throw away the raccoon".

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I knew a similar version for cooking coot... AKA-mud hen.