SC - Random excursion in to salad recipes - oop

[Mordonna22@aol.com]

I saved this article (it was in the paper the day we flew to DC for the
Folger's exhibit) so that I could type it in for the folks on the list. 
I know how the quest to gather recipes can get to all of us, and I
figured at least Ras would appreciate it.  
	This is from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday, Nov. 26th,
1999. 

	IT'S RACCOON SEASON AT THE TABLE	
	by Jim Wooten

	Turkey? Sure, turkey is fine for the mainland folks.  But for many of
the residents of Hog Hammock on Sapelo Island off the Georgia coast, a
truly fine Thanksgiving meal is not complete without a traditional
delicacy.  
	Ask Sharron Grovner.  On a good day, when she's got a few minutes to
spare from her work at the state-owned R.J.Reynolds home on Sapelo,
she'll tell you the secret.  Listen closely.  Miss one step, one
important step, and the Thanksgiving delicacy will be unfit to eat.  The
musk glands under the legs and along the back must be carefully removed,
she says.  Or else...
	"If you don't musk it, you're gonna taste it," says Grovner.  
	The declicacy?  Oh, yes, the reason grown men stalk off with the dogs in
the dark and hunt the night away is to procure the Sapelo delicacy, the
summer-fattened raccoon.  "It's a traditional dish we fix on the island
when hunting season opens up" on Oct. 15th, she says.
	The ideal animal, according to Grovner, is one that weighs 10-15 pounds.
 The best raccoon, though, is not the fresh raccoon.  After it is
procured, cleaned and musked, it is frozen for a month.  Then it is
boiled in a pot with celery, onion, bell pepper, Season-all, salt,
pepper, and bay leaves until it is half tender.  Then it is deep fried
until brown.  And finally it is baked, covered in a cup of water, in a
350 degree oven for 45 minutes and served with sweet potatoes.  
	Cooking the raccoon is an art she learned from her mother, and one day
she and other women on Hog Hammock, population 70, will include it in a
cookbook for sale to tourists who come to the island by ferry.  For now,
though, the information's free.  
	Matthew Hill of Cartersville (GA) knows about cooking raccoon, too. 
Every February, on the fourth Sunday, his St. Luke AME Church holds a
Wild Feast Day.  Rabbits, raccoons, deer, possum, goat, groundhog and
turtles all are served - and for the citified folks too squeamish to
sample the delicacies of the forest, there's chicken, ham and turkey. 
	Hill prefers chitlins to raccoon as a Thanksgiving dish.  "I eat raccoon
anytime but now is the time to eat them," says Hill, a retired football
coach who now sits on the school board and who serves as a State Senate
sergeant-at-arms during the legislative session.  "Somebody gave me five
last weekend and I've got somebody cleaning them now.  It's not a bad
idea to freeze them first.  Sometimes I'll soak mine in salt water
overnight.
	"You boil it first.  Usually I'll put onions and black pepper and salt
and red pepper in the pot.  You boil it until it gets tender, until you
can stick a fork in it.  Then I take it out and bake it on 350 and
usually I'll make up a sauce.  Some people use barbecue sauce.  The best
thing I baste it with while it's baking is vinegar, butter and a little
honey, but I don't think anybody does that but me."
	Finally, to prove that there's more than one way to skin a raccoon,
there's this recipe offered by Deidra Stewart of Rhine, a cafeteria
worker at Telfair County Primary School, in a
just-in-time-for-Thanksgiving cooking column that ran in the Telfair
Enterprise. 
	"Clean and wash coon, put in large pot and boil," she writes.   Her
raccoon is boiled in water with one-half cup vinegar added.  Afterward,
the raccoon is washed again, salted and peppered.  For raccoon and rice,
Stewart adds a cup of rice, a can of tomato paste and a sliced onion in a
pot with water and cooks until the rice is done, about 15 minutes.  
	For barbecued raccoon, she puts it in a baking pan with four cut-up
sweet potatoes and onions, pours a 16-oz bottle of barbecue sauce over
the raccoon, and bakes it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  
	The taste?  "It's moist like chicken, but it has its own unique taste,
kind of like venison," says Sapelo's Grovner.  "It tastes somewhat like
beef," Hill thinks. "It's good eating." 
	And what to do with the leftovers?  What leftovers?  This is raccoon,
not turkey.  "It's good eating," says Hill.  
___________________________________________________________________
Why pay more to get Web access?
Try Juno for FREE -- then it's just $9.95/month if you act NOW!
Get your free software today: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================