Monday, September 17, 2012

One Man's Roadkill Is Another Man's Evening Meal

Too bad Farmer H and the #1 son had a previous engagement tonight. I coulda cooked up a rip-snorting pot o' vittles for our supper. It would have been wasted on just me and The Pony. This is one time that opportunity knocked and was left standing on the porch while I peered at him through the peephole, pretending I wasn't home, trying to control my breathing so he couldn't hear.

Nature's rich bounty beckoned to me all the way to school this morning. Not two miles from the Mansion was a squashed possum. No need to tenderize that varmint. His meat was already falling off his bones. While I bemoaned the loss of such a prime ingredient for the stewpot, a turtle snuck up on me. Not so much snuck up, as laid on the road in his cracked armor daring me to pop a tire by driving over his shattered shell. I envisioned a tasty batch of turtle brittle. But alas, no time to stop. Freshmen wait for no woman. Hi ho, hi hent, it's off to school I went. Halfway there, the third course made its appearance. An armadillo, complete with shell. You don't see those things every day. He was kind of ensconced in his own boilin' bag. I could imagine burying him in the coals of my fire pit out back by the cement pond, and roasting him in his own juices. No need to even waste foil wrapping him. Too bad, so sad. I had to pass him by. Time constraints, you know.

With a little ingenuity, I'm sure The Pony could have rigged up a slingshot of sorts with his car charger and some half-full water bottles. He could have bagged me some four and twenty blackbirds from those pecking at my main ingredients. Then we might have had a pie.

Those critters really need to attend a road-crossing seminar presented by a chicken.

5 comments:

Sioux Roslawski said...

An armadillo in its own boiling bag. Turtle brittle. Pre-tenderized possum. My mouth was watering with the description.

Is that bile or saliva that's rolling around in my mouth?

I envisioned Jed Clampett trotting out of the woods with this post.

knancy said...

In West Virginia we have what is called a "Critter Dinner" in a city near where I live. Every year they cook "wild" animals and serve them during the festival. From squirrel to bear and who knows what else? Eeww, yuck, and no way. I imagine most are smashed road kill that people save for just this event.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Sioux,
Like the movie Jed Clampett, we would have utilized those long wooden pot-passers around our soft green dining room table with the corner pockets.

***********
knancy,
Waste not, want not! I could understand if it was fresh, having just been knocked unconscious by a rolling tire. But I would be reluctant to ingest a road critter for which I did not know the estimated time of death.

melyssa said...

Turtle brittle, eh? Yum.
Have you seen Duck Dynasty? They made squirrel dumplings. It was wonderful television, I tell you what.

Hillbilly Mom said...

melyssa,
No Duck Dynasty. But I think Andrew Zimmern on the Bizarre Foods show would try the squirrel dumplings. After all, he did a show about eating squirrel and possum, like they were BIZARRE FOODS! Those New York people crack me up! Yet they'll eat tongue like it's normal.