Rendering Squirrel Fat

Comments

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @silvertipgrizz Yes, I read that. I still can't imagine me eating squirrel. I would have to be pretty hungry.

  • silvertipgrizz
    silvertipgrizz Posts: 1,990 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @LaurieLovesLearning When I was about 10 years old my dad took me with him to just walk around in the woods and see what we could find interesting...my dad saw a squirrel and pick up a rock about the size of a quarter but just a little larger...I watched him throw that rock and hit the squirrel in the head and he was down instantly... He then instructed me to help him skin it, which of course I did, never having done anything like that before, and after it was skinned and ready to cook, we took it back to my grandmothers house and cooked it and ate it right up..me and my dad. I can remember it like it was yesterday, I don't remember what it tasted like, but for a time some years back I started hunting rabbits with some friends and while I thought the meat was ok, and I believe in eating it if you hunt it..but a few seasons later when we were hunting and the season was off a bit, a rabbit one of us got had an unwanted things in it so I have not wanted rabbit since..foolish of me esp in these days so I would not hesitate eating wild game now...looks like it's may be more plentiful than commercial..at best. Worse comes to worse, a clothes pin applied to the nose could be in order lol...

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin

    I've never tried using squirrel fat for anything other than gravy. But, I will. We have wild hogs and bears where I live, and plenty of geese, so fat hasn't been scarce. Coons and possums are fatty, too but unless they have been eating very clean, you wouldn't want yuo use it. Groundhogs and beavers are a very good source of good fat.

  • silvertipgrizz
    silvertipgrizz Posts: 1,990 ✭✭✭✭✭

    F@judsoncarroll4 some years back I got a book on outdoor survival because I did a lot of hunting in those days..One of the most valuable lessons I got from that book is that, in any survival situation....always be ready to take an animal for food, even though you may not be hungry yet...becuase it may be the only food source you see for days or worse..weather, location...and as I read on, he taught that because most of the fat on a beaver is actually in it's tail..and his tip was this:

    at your campfire, at the base of one of your cook pot supports, lay beaver tail against the brace and keep an eye on it so that when you see that the skin has popped away from the core, the fat is readily and easily dripped into your cook pan, an extremely important survivalist way to stay healthy and warm due to consuming fat which the body needs for brain health, hormones..etc...

    let us know how it turns out.

  • OhiohillsLouise
    OhiohillsLouise Posts: 120 ✭✭✭

    I hope I can remember this stuff if I ever need to use it! Butchering chickens is my limit of meat processing but I find all this info very interesting.