Eating a Racoon

[Lucky_P]

I've cooked 'em and eaten 'coon - grilled and then slathered with BBQ sauce. It was OK. Better than groundhog. Goat is better than either of those.
I cleaned my own coons, and trimmed away all fat and lymph nodes when dressing them out. They were usually shot out of trees around cornfields, so I don't figure they'd have been any better being penned and fed, as they were already 'corn-fed'.

 

[chaded]

You will want a young coon, 5-7 pounds. As mentioned, preferably one that has been on feed or been in the corn fields.

When dressing it make sure you are 'clean' about it so you don't taint the meat. Also, cut all fat off of it as this is where a lot of the bad taste comes from.

It is best to debone them too. Make sure you remove the pea size scent gland from each leg where it meets the body.

After deboning you are going to want to soak in buttermilk. 24 hours or so is ideal but if your in a hurry 8-12 hours will work.

After doing this you will want to rinse and pat dry. Next you will want to boil the meat for 30 minutes.

Once you have all this done ( mouth watering yet?) you will want to transfer the meat to a dutch oven with some vegetables like carrots, onions, potatoes, etc. Also add some salt, pepper, garlic.

Add stock but don't completely cover everything. Put it in the oven set at 300 for 3-3.5 hours.



After you pull it from the oven let it rest for 30 minutes. After resting, take it out and proceed to throw it in the trash and order a pizza. I have never ate coon but I imagine that's probably the best way to do it.

 

[Dave]

At a trapper convention I have eaten raccoon, muskrat, and beaver. I may have had bobcat too but I don't recall having that. All were OK but nothing I tried to cook myself. I continued feeding hundreds of them to the coyotes. I have had mountain lion. It was good enough to eat one if I shoot one.

 

[Caustic Burno]

You will want a young coon, 5-7 pounds. As mentioned, preferably one that has been on feed or been in the corn fields.

When dressing it make sure you are 'clean' about it so you don't taint the meat. Also, cut all fat off of it as this is where a lot of the bad taste comes from.

It is best to debone them too. Make sure you remove the pea size scent gland from each leg where it meets the body.

After deboning you are going to want to soak in buttermilk. 24 hours or so is ideal but if your in a hurry 8-12 hours will work.

After doing this you will want to rinse and pat dry. Next you will want to boil the meat for 30 minutes.

Once you have all this done ( mouth watering yet?) you will want to transfer the meat to a dutch oven with some vegetables like carrots, onions, potatoes, etc. Also add some salt, pepper, garlic.

Add stock but don't completely cover everything. Put it in the oven set at 300 for 3-3.5 hours.



After you pull it from the oven let it rest for 30 minutes. After resting, take it out and proceed to throw it in the trash and order a pizza. I have never ate coon but I imagine that's probably the best way to do it.

Coon is good IMO we mostly bar b que them.

 

[Rafter S]

Found this while surfing the net. Thought you night find it interesting.

MSN

I've eaten coon a time or two, but it was over 40 years ago. I seem to remember that it was okay, but didn't leave me wanting more.

I have never eaten raccoon, but I have tasted Opossum and it was not good.

I can believe that. Back around 1980, when there was a big demand for varying kinds of animal hides, the local buyer would pay $3.00 for a possum hide or $1.50 for the whole possum. I helped clean exactly one. Even in 1980 it didn't take me long to decide it wasn't worth $1.50 to clean one as bad as they stink.

I remember my dad sitting in the kitchen eating Limburger cheese... and no one could stay in the house because it reeked.

I used to work with a guy who'd bring chittlins to work for his lunch, and heat them up on a hot plate. I'd have to leave the break room and eat my lunch in the wood shop.

I guess the most unusual meat I ever ate was about 25 years ago when my boss, who was raised in Louisiana, invited me over to his house after work on Friday. He had some relatives visiting, and they were barbecuing. As I was drinking beer and telling lies with them one of them handed me a chunk of meat and asked me to try it. I did. It tasted okay, but the texture was a little different. He asked me if I knew what it was. I didn't. He told me it was nutria. I said okay, can I have some more?

 

[TexasRancher]

Found this while surfing the net. Thought you night find it interesting.

MSN

Dad, shot and butchered up small raccoons...and snapping turtles....it was all good meat. I liked the snowshoe rabbits the best, squirrels second, deer meat third, turtle meat fourth and raccoon fifth.

 

[texoman]

I grew up trapping in central tx. This was late 70s through the 80s. Ive tried about everything down there at least once. The fur buyer preferred coons in the round because of the meat. Once i bounced out to college in the early 90s, I continued trapping for money and ate LOTS of coon, beaver, nutria, turtles, etc... Lots of it isn't great but not awful either.

 

[SmokinM]

Depends when was the last time I ate? An hour ago maybe not, a day ago yeah I will dive in like it is a pool.

 

[greybeard]

Turtle..the other red, white, green pink and bluish purple meat...

 

[Rafter S]

Turtle..the other red, white, green pink and bluish purple meat...

I have a friend who will just about wreck his truck stopping to pick up a soft shell turtle if he sees one when he's driving.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

My old lady Texas rancher friend neighbor grew up on the place in a log cabin. She said when she was a child they went down to Boggy Branch to play and heard one of her mom's hens screaming and there she was out in the water. They ran and told mom and she came with a rake. Fished out the hen and there was a snapping turtle attached to her leg. She served both for dinner.

 

[coon hunter]

A lot like goat. Great barbequed. The joke: only take one with the feet still on if it is cleaned to avoid eating a house cat.

As a kid I would sell them for 3 bucks.And yes you had better leave a hind foot on them.

 

[Dusty Britches]

Found this while surfing the net. Thought you night find it interesting.

MSN

My neighbor requests I trap them and give them to him. He loves raccoon. I'd try it if given the opportunity.

I'd also try beaver tail, but I think my one and only chance was when I gave it to this neighbor and I honestly think he threw it away. At 83 years of age he never heard of a beaver, or so he claims.

 

[chaded]

So people like coon but not cat? Picky….picky.

 

[Dusty Britches]

Anyone ever eat a coyote?

My sister had to cook one for a wild game barbecue in which well over 100 people attended. She said it was the first meat to be completely consumed and every one said it tasted great.

 

[greybeard]

Anyone ever eat a coyote?

My sister had to cook one for a wild game barbecue in which well over 100 people attended. She said it was the first meat to be completely consumed and every one said it tasted great.

Gaegogi... Don't ever order it off a Korean menu.

 

[Rafter S]

Anyone ever eat a coyote?

My sister had to cook one for a wild game barbecue in which well over 100 people attended. She said it was the first meat to be completely consumed and every one said it tasted great.

No, I haven't, but my buddy and I had one hanging that we had just got finished skinning to sell the hide (if I remember right they were worth $10.00 around 1980) when someone saw it and got all excited thinking we had killed a deer.

 

[Silver]

I'd also try beaver tail, but I think my one and only chance was when I gave it to this neighbor and I honestly think he threw it away. At 83 years of age he never heard of a beaver, or so he claims.

I can tell you that a beaver tail is a gristly oily disgusting thing that can not be made to taste good regardless of the cooking methods and procedures. I believe that anyone who claims to have enjoyed it was about dead from starvation at the time of consumption.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

The PNW Indians and the plains Indians the had hardly any dietary fat in the rabbit meat and deer meat they mostly ate. People need animal fat to live. Beaver tail has a lot of fat. They probably didn't much cared how it tasted.

I used to have a boyfriend he and his friends would go out at night and shoot nutrias. He would barbeque the hind quarters. Thats where most of the meat is. I never tried it, the dead animals smell like pond muck.
Restaurants serve nutria in Louisiana because cajuns will eat anything with enough hot sauce on it

In Oregon the two college football teams are the Beavers and the Ducks. There are a couple of fierce team names. Ducks-- you know what ducks do to people, they nibble on you with their bills. And the Beavers, such dangerous fierce aquatic rodents. Of course the women's basketball team is the Lady Beavers.

 

[greybeard]

I believe it was CT member Jogeephus that once said beaver tail was dang good..good for nothing.

go out at night and shoot nutrias. He would barbeque the hind quarters. Thats where most of the meat is. I never tried it, the dead animals smell like pond muck.

That's pretty much what beaver smell like too. May be different up north where there's cold deep water but down in East Texas, where they almost exclusively burrow in the muddy embankments they smell like puuck.

Historical antropologists at the end of the 3rd millennium will state that 21st century man:
"Has conquered the atom.
Has ventured out into the solar system.
Has clawed his way to the top of the food chain.
Eats rats."