LTHForum.com

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These days, however, in farmers' markets, butcher shops, village pubs and elegant restaurants, squirrel is selling as fast as gamekeepers and hunters can bring it in.

"Part of the interest is curiosity and novelty," said Barry Shaw of Shaw Meats, who sells squirrel meat at the Wirral Farmers Market near Liverpool. "It's a great conversation starter for dinner parties."

While some have difficulty with the cuteness versus deliciousness ratio — that adorable little face, those itty-bitty claws — many feel that eating squirrel is a way to do something good for the environment while enjoying a unique gastronomical experience.

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British bon vivants suddenly couldn't get enough squirrel. Television chefs were preparing it, cookbooks were extolling it, farmers' markets were selling out of it and restaurants in many places were offering it on the menu.

Meanwhile gamekeepers, hunters and trappers were happy to know that the meat was being eaten, not wasted. "My lads don't like to kill an animal if it's not going to be eaten," Shaw said of the hunters who bring him game.

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Walkers launched its Do Us A Flavour campaign last July, challenging members of the public to think up a unique flavour of crisp.

Fish and chips, crispy duck and hoi sin, and builder's breakfast have also made the finals of the public search.

Chef Heston Blumenthal and a judging panel picked the top six entries from more than one million, and Walkers turned the ideas into reality.

The crisps can be bought from all supermarkets from today until May, either individually or in a special multipack containing all six flavours.

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Meanwhile Cajun squirrel is the wacky flavour created by Martyn Wright, 26, the only man to have made the final six.

The online marketer, who lives in Hednesford, Staffordshire, was inspired to enter when he saw squirrel on a restaurant menu and he believes the public will be so intrigued that they will have to buy a pack.

He said: "This gentle Cajun flavouring will be delicious for the public and although the idea might sound bizarre, it really works. No squirrels were harmed in the making of these crisps!"

Hi,

A few years ago, there was a bit of a flurry on cuy in Chicago. Monica Eng wrote an article where her then-husband described cuy's flavor as "Fish bacon!" Practically stirs the imagination, doesn't it? I never had cuy at that restaurant Monica visited, though Cafe Salamera (RIP) did make it for a private party. "Fish bacon," never left my mind when I tasted it.

I would have a hard time eating squirrel. My grandpa spent the last years of his life befriending the squirrels in his backyard - they came down to be petted and responded to their names and everything. After witnessing pet-like squirrel behavior, it would be too much like chowing on Benji chops.

What I'm curious about is why we aren't testing food for it more: seems to work with deer.

A few weeks ago, outside a deer brain testing facility.

"Sophisticated urbanites" ?? Whozat? [looks around the room] Don't see any of them 'round here!

Geo

9-4-5: 7. No person shall slaughter any hen, or any other animal, within City limits. Nothing in this section is to be interpreted as prohibiting any establishment that is licensed to slaughter, from slaughtering for food purposes any animals which are specifically raised for food purposes.

At some point we stopped eating squirrels in this country. Certainly the very first Americans ate them in abundance, as did the first European settlers, who cleared the ancient forests and issued bounties on the rodent plagues that ravaged their crops; in colonial Pennsylvania authorities offered hunters three pence per squirrel killed. It was the colonists' skill in bagging them with their long-barreled rifles that gave them an edge on the Redcoats during the Revolution.

In the mid-1800s mass squirrel cullings occurred in Indiana, Ohio, New York, and Kentucky. They often took the form of hunting contests in which thousands of animals were killed. Surely those squirrels wound up in the pots of community feeds. Different regions have different names for the massive stews simmered for harvest celebrations, some of which are still held today: the Brunswick stews of Virginia, the burgoos of Kentucky, the booyahs of Wisconsin, and chowders of southern Illinois. The recipes were similar, a thick, slow-cooked mishmash of meats and vegetables, more often than not featuring squirrel as the most important protein source. A well-circulated formula for Kentucky Burgoo Stew in the 1939 cookbook Fine Old Dixie Recipes calls for an astonishing 600 pounds of squirrel meat, "1 doz. to each 100 gals."

Sadly, at least here in Evanston, we can't harvest the little buggers for a nice Brunswick Stew.