In My Own Backyard . . . And Front . . . And Side, Part 1

Mike Huckabee, former candidate for candidate for president of the United States—he didn’t make it, I mean, he didn’t achieve candidacy, only candidacy for the candidacy—claims he eats squirrel. Or at least he ate it in college. This he told during his 2008 campaign, that he and his roommates fried them up in their dorm room, using their popcorn popper. He did not tell the part about how they got the squirrels. To tell that might have been unwise. Shooting them out of the trees? on campus? I wonder.

Huckabee may or may not have eaten squirrel, even if he looks like someone who would. But looking like a squirrel eater was not enough. He had to come right out and say he was one so that certain folks, the folks who also eat squirrel, I guess, would believe he actually did eat squirrel. And vote for him because of it. Wow! Quite a clever campaign strategy, I must say, and look where it got him. Not that I care. I never did like him, never did trust him, always thought he was a coward, maybe even a rat.

But people do eat squirrel. It may even be a southern delicacy. No doubt some people also eat rat. What would be the difference?*

Squirrel meat is supposed to taste like chicken or rabbit. Well, no kidding. Like I’ll ever know that for myself. Might as well taste like rattle snake, which, I’ve heard, tastes like chicken. I’ve also heard chicken tastes like . . . you know, chicken.

But Wikipedia says squirrel tastes more gamey than chicken, duh, or rabbit (which we ate when I was growing up), and somebody has analyzed squirrel meat’s cholesterol content and found it to be too high for our health. By the way, when I googled squirrels, I found many sites for squirrel recipes, but I didn’t go there.

All of which leads me to ask, Where are the squirrel eaters in my town? Where are the squirrel eaters when I need them?

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*A reference to the fact that squirrels are rodents, or, as I call them, rats with bushy tails.