Before we go on, you might ask: what is a Commoner? Well, the "commons" is the land around an agricultural area which belongs to nobody in particular, but everybody in common, and on which people are allowed to graze their livestock, gather nuts, and so forth. That brings us to the New Forest, which was set aside by William the Conqueror as a hunting preserve. (The French word, "forest" originally meant a royal hunting preserve, not necessarily timbered. Exmoor Forest, for example, is a largely treeless moor.) At this, the miserable Anglo-Saxons sent him a petition to the effect: Please, your lordship, but we have been used to grazing our pigs, cutting timber, gathering nuts, and so forth in the woods, and if we can't do it any more, we'll starve to death, and be unable to pay any taxes. Since the king and his Norman hangers-on were going to use it only a few times a year, he graciously granted them dispensation. The Commoners are those who still enjoy this privilege. It is a right which goes with the property they own.
But what are (or were) "snoggs" and "squails"? For this, let me quote the Hon. Gerald Lascelles, C.B., the one time Deputy Surveyor of the New Forest.
The 'Squail' is the more artistic weapon, and probably the more ancient. It is the product of the man who lives wholly in the woodlands.From the last sentence, you will gather that neither weapon were variations on the sling. The whole instrument, not just the wooden or lead ball, was cast at the rodent. In the right hands, it was accurate to fifty metres.
It consists of a stick, about 15 inches [38 cm] long, light, with just a trifle of play in it, and to the end of which is fixed a round or, better, a slightly pear-shaped ball, turned out of some heavy hard-wood, The 'Snogg' is a similar weapon, but made of a rather stouter stick of similar length, around the head of which is fixed a ferrule, or lump of lead. It is claimed that this weapon is less likely to become lodged in the branches of trees.
Alas! All this has vanished with the advance of "civilisation", along with the decline of the red squirrel due to an epidemic just over a hundred years ago. Since then, the American grey squirrel has replaced them, and is regarded as a pest. One would think, therefore, that hunting them with a modern instrument such as an air-gun would be encouraged. But when a biologist demonstrated cooking squirrel on TV, it was met with outrage! This is typical. We have a similar problem selling kangaroo meat in Australia, and nobody is game to take the logical step of consuming insects, which have the advantage of being highly nutritious, and capable of being raised far more intensively than livestock. People have such ridiculous food taboos.
Reference: Gerald Lascelles (1915), Thirty-Five Years in the New Forest (which can be read or downloaded here), cited on page 612 of The Boy's Own Annual, vol. 42 (1920)
The protest over eating squirrels is probably down to Walt Disney (people identifying with those cute animals they've seen in Walt Disney cartoons). Either that, or because squirrels are called "tree rats," and people think they're dirty. In the U.S., people used to eat game animals all the time. Venison and other game was served at the best hotels, and the practice only died out when the game became scarce due to over-hunting and clearing all the trees for agriculture. Now it's somewhat of a joke that only "hillbillies" or other poor people eat squirrel because they can't get anything else. Interestingly, the opossum (only marsupial in North America) was apparently regarded as a delicacy in the diet of colonial Americans, but I can't imagine anyone eating one now. It's supposed to have a very nice flavor. I have a wider perspective on eating game from being raised in the country and fed about half the time on venison, but I think most city people believe meat grows in styrofoam packages in the grocery store. The same people who eat the most meat are squeamish about the idea of killing wild animals, which is ironic, because 90%+ of animals raised for food are treated very inhumanely, under "factory farming" conditions, and therefore suffer a lot more than a wild animal that lives free, but happens to get shot during hunting season. So, bring on the squirrel pie, if you need to get rid of those pesky American squirrel. :)
ReplyDeleteQuite right, of course. It was interesting that the French speaking part of America refused to eat opossum because it was called rat de bois or "bush rat". What I said about eating kangaroo in Australia is not completely true. You can buy kangaroo at our local supermarket, but it took a long time for people to get used to it. And, of course, you can imagine the outcry if horse meat were sold for human consumption.
DeleteAmerican Grey Squirrels have become primary carriers the same prion debilitating pathogen in their brains and neural tissue that causes Creutzfeldt-Jakob's Disease aka "Mad Cow Disease" if consumed by humans, in North America. Kill them but don't eat them where they're an invasive species.
ReplyDeleteWhere I grew up, the greater Ohio Valley, squirrel hunting and consumption is common, in fact it's the shank of squirrel season now. Every boy is given a single shot shotgun around the age of ten, usually the same one his Dad and Grandad used and is cleared to hit the woods.
There are long standing customs around the consumption of squirrels. The men kill and clean them, and get the best part, the haunches. The women meanwhile always got the most nutritious part, the brain, which was customarily cooked in scrambled eggs. The limit here on squirrels is six a day per hunter. Dad and the lad limit out and it's lot of brains and meat.
In the mid-1970's dementia started showing up in primarily country raised women in their 40's and 50's in clusters, a great Aunt by marriage fell victim to it in the late 1970's. It perplexed the docs to say the least.
When it started emerging in humans in Europe from eating cattle a decade and a half later, the dots were connected, the squirrels examined here, and bingo, there was the vector. As it takes decades for the symptoms to emerge, and mothers would give bites of the brain laden eggs to their small children as source of vitamins and minerals,(I'm glad I always refused the eggs!), were talking about an incubation period of decades.
The custom, however, remained popular until the 1990's when knowledge of the squirrel-C.J. disease was conclusively shown. It's hard to tell how many ticking C.J. time bombs are wandering about the Midwest and upper South?
That being said squirrel is perfectly safe to eat as long as you remove the head and spine when cleaning and damned good. We locals generally give the common grey's a pass for the much larger red squirrels.
Odd that the French refused to eat possum? They had no problem eating the two largest rodents in eastern N. America, the beaver and the groundhog.
Personally, I wouldn't eat possum, they're just too damned ugly, but they are supposed to be good if caught young and grain fed. Tell your squeamish friends it's pork, and they'll be raving about how good it is. Spring the truth on them after they head back for seconds.
Remember, stay away from squirrel brains.
Personally, I wouldn't touch possum. They feed a lot on road kill and other dead animals. Just as bad as the type of catfish that are bottom feeders and for the same reason. Had a friend in the late 70's whose grandmother loved possum and she was a bit strange. (The grandmother, although the friend was definitely edging that way.) Squirrel is fine, fried is wonderful and stew is more than acceptable, sans brains, of course. There are a lot of people of Scots/Irish descent in the US who are among the ones showing signs of CJ, probably from eating that mixture as it seems to be more or less a common dish. Many also ate calves brains and eggs. I'm squeamish where the odder bits of animal usage are concerned, too many years of seeing them laid out in butcher cases as a kid. Southern city, basically rural but a very large city still. On eating wild game, don't make a habit of eating rabbit. The meat is too lean and you can starve to death with a full belly. So much for the infamous fat-free diets.
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