The burgoo-eaters of Kentucky - LWR

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The burgoo-eaters of Kentucky

Posted by LWR (A) on February 14, 2007 at 19:57:23

Hey, pass me some of them squirrel brains

HonoluluStarBulletin.com ^ | 9/3/97 | Charles Memminger

I was just thinking the other day, you rarely hear any great varmint stories anymore.

Then, all of a sudden, the wires are flooded with varmint news. Of course, you, the reader, rarely ever get to see these stories. These are the ones that editors like to hold back and pass around the office via e-mail.

I don't know why. I suppose some editors think that it's demeaning for a newspaper to run stories about, say, 500 chickens in Japan that were scared to death after a rocket exploded a few miles away. Or the story about some guys in Vietnam caught trying to smuggle 170 squirrels and five weasels into China.

Or, speaking of squirrels, the story about several people from Kentucky who have come down with a fatal disease from eating squirrel brains.

Personally, I find the entire subject of eating squirrel brains fascinating. Partly because it never occurred to me that anyone would want to eat a squirrel brain and, secondly, Hawaii is a squirrel-free state.

Apparently, eating squirrel brain in small southern states is fairly common. According to a recent wire story, they are either scrambled with eggs or used in a stew called "burgoo."

See, I would have thought the proper way to eat squirrel brain was on a Ritz cracker. They say everything is better on a Ritz and I would guess that a squirrel brain needs all the help it can get.

I confess that while visiting relatives in a rural part of Louisiana as a kid, I did taste deep-fried squirrel. To my surprise, I found it tasted like weasel, which is weird, since I'd never tried weasel. It certainly didn't taste like chicken, unless it was one of those rare breed of tree-dwelling chickens that lives on acorns and spends the winter in hollow logs.

In any case, "my people," as relatives in the more wooded parts of Louisiana are called, confined their consumption of squirrel to the meatier parts, like the sirloin and, I suppose, the drumsticks, if that term can be used in reference to squirrel legs. I don't think they were being uppity by not eating the squirrel brain. I think that, in their particular neck of the woods, it would simply be considered "yucky."

But the burgoo-eaters of Kentucky feel differently. Brain reigns. Or maybe it did. Recent studies have shown that 12 out of 42 patients with Parkinson's Disease had eaten squirrel brains. Scientists think there may be a connection between eating squirrel brains and catching a human variant of mad cow disease.

A University of Kentucky neurologist went so far as to warn Kentuckians against "eating squirrels or other similar rodents."

Now, I'm not dumping on Kentucky. But you've got to admit, not many states would issue such a warning.

For most people, not eating rodent brains would seem to be, well, a no-brainer.

I know, that's easy for me to say, since we don't have squirrels in Hawaii. But we do have mongooses. Mongooses are like squirrels except they are about 2 feet long, have rows of hellishly sharp teeth and travel at the speed of light. Although people in Hawaii have been known to consume entire pigs which have been buried in a steaming pit of hot rocks, I know of no one who has considered eating a mongoose.

Again, I don't think we're being uppity. It's just that pigs are so much easier to catch and not so heavily armed.

And, frankly, with so much else to eat around here, like papayas, mangoes and Spam, no one's ever gotten hungry enough to eat a mongoose. It would be sort of like eating your cat. Mongoose in Hawaii would be the entree of last resort. And mongoose brain wouldn't even make the pupu menu, crackers or not.

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