Who wants a second helping of squirrel?

A couple of months ago this column made reference to my great-uncle Joe, a conductor for the old CB&Q, and the forays he once made into southwest Iowa to hunt, fish, and share the harvest at family dinners.  

He was particularly fond of squirrel, often referring to the critters as being “the best meat in the woods.” The column included his favorite recipe.  I thought there might be a response.  There was not.  The only comment was one I solicited from a sister who greatly enjoys cooking and experimenting. I sent her a copy of the recipe.  

She emailed a one-word reply:  “Yuck.”  Her reaction was not because she disliked the dish.  She would not, even if she had the squirrel, try it.  She delights in serving tough-as-tires snow geese, will cheerfully braise a stringy antelope or grill a haunch of bear, but the thought of consuming a squirrel is one she finds entirely repugnant.  

I dismissed the column as another harmless failure and went back to the more reliable George Madden diary.

You can appreciate, then, the satisfaction I felt when vindication came from a person as widely esteemed as Georgia Pellegrini.  

For those who might not know her, Pellegrini is a chef who writes a nationally distributed column, has authored two books, and regularly appears on cable television.  A college graduate possessing several degrees, she made her living for a few years in Manhattan.  Growing weary of her career in the financial world, she left an office cubicle to enroll in the French Culinary Institute.  An advocate of traditional and natural food, she’s worked in farm-to-table restaurants in both the U.S. and France.  

She writes: “I found that I was most interested in the foragers and fig collectors and salami makers that arrived at the restaurants, and soon befriended them, and went on their journeys with them, through the woods, into the curing rooms and over the rolling hills of olive oil vineyards.”  

Shortly thereafter her first book, “Food Heroes,” was published.  This book was followed by “Girl Hunter,” in which she describes her experience hunting and preparing game.  

While there is nearly a hundred years difference in their dates of birth, Georgia Pellegrini and Uncle Joe would have gotten along well.  She’d have enjoyed hunting and cooking with the chubby, ruddy-faced old codger.  I suspect that given the opportunity they’d have been as big a hit on food television as were Julia and Jacque.

Pellegrini has written a column dated January 22, 2012.  In it she tells us that “some consider squirrel to be the best meat in the woods. On my journey as a chef, I have come to think it might be the best meat, period.”   

Whoa! Uncle Joe, although lacking the chef’s perspective, said the same thing.  And he was not a New York gourmand, not a celebrity, not likely to dine on sushi or lobster or slivers of $700 per pound acorn-fed Spanish pork.  Pellegrini, a person who has, would rather have a squirrel.

With that I’ll stop gloating.  Next week we get back to George Madden and his moldy corn meal mush, served ala lard.  

First, though, I’m going to get a squirrel from the freezer and mix up a batch of biscuits.  Bon Appetite.                

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.