It is a truth universally acknowledged that rain drops on a tin roof ensure a great nights sleep and I was fast heading in that direction when I heard the most God awful screams coming from behind the trailer.
The sounds in darkness are nothing new, the yaps of the coyote, the hoot of the owl and the snarling growl of the bobcat, but this was different and unlike anything I had heard before.
I pulled on my boots, grabbing the shotgun and flashlight as I went out the door. Good thing I have no Neighbors, because I’m sure they’d been alarmed by the site of a man carrying a shotgun wearing nothing but boots and underwear.
The sound was coming from behind the goat shed, I could see the dogs moving back and forth in an aggressive manner, but still I couldn’t see what they were after. As I walked closer the shape of a huge raccoon began to form from the darkness.
Evidently, in trying to cross the electric fence (solar-powered
Which is how I came up with the idea for this post – Spices and Seasonings. I’ve noticed a lot of survival food storage sources on the web overlook the necessity of adding these to the larder, which is a mistake.
Let’s face it; during a survival situation you could be forced to eat things you would not normally eat. A supply of seasonings makes a lot of sense, allowing the survivor to make even the most peculiar foods palatable.
Recommended Spices and Seasonings
Basil
Chili powder
Cinnamon
Garlic
Sage
Marjoram
Oregano
Rosemary
Thyme
Black Pepper
All supermarkets and most small grocery stores have well-stocked shelves offering a wide choice of herbs and spices, these are cheap enough that you can stock your year’s supply for very little. Be sure to date, use and rotate so you always have fresh supplies on hand.
Crock-pot Raccoon
1/4 c. honey
1 c. chicken broth
3 tbsp. vinegar
3 tbsp. cream sherry
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1/4 tsp. garlic salt
Clean raccoon, quarter, and remove fat. Put pieces into a Crock-Pot
I wonder what tonight will bring? Sleep I hope – then again I could use another raccoon for the Crock-Pot
What’s the strangest thing (food) you’ve ever eaten?
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Snake, coon, muskrat, beaver, deer, dove, pigeon, squirrel, goat, chicken, quail, duck, goose, eel, fish, mussel, shrimp, clam, pig and cow. Might be more but I can’t think of it now. No wonder I have the dreaded dick-do disease…..
LOL! I just had to Google dick-do disease, while eating a sandwich, and now I have to clean bread crumbs off the monitor.
Shared a plate of chipmunks once. Cooked up right, it was just like eating chicken wings.
Depending on where you live, many of your herbs can be grown readily. In the South Rosemarry is a perennial bush. Thyme and oregano are perennial.
Basil is th only major Italian herb that seems to need replanting.
The following food items were procured from the wild – quail, pheasant, squirrel, freshwater clams, trout, salmon, venison, bear, feral pig, abalone, pronghorn antelope, elk, crab, smelt, bluegill, crappie, sturgeon, and catfish.
But the strangest thing I ever ate was in a restaurant — jellyfish.
Had donkey kabob, Squid, wouldnt mind trying pigs feet
The strangest thing I had eaten was something my son made me when he was 5 years old. Smelled bad, looked worse but was told the ingredients so I ate that birthday breakfast.
Maybe you should put a Comfort Care Kit outside your electric fence to help dissuade the next Rocky Raccoon.
I had a similar experience when my daughter was the same age. She made ‘soup’ from tikka curry powder and rice – and no, she didn’t cook the rice. As dutiful parents we ate the concoction – totally worth it so we could rib her about it 20 years later. :-)
We don’t have anything particularly strange in England, although apparently I ate worms straight from the ground as a toddler.
I had alligater once. It tasted like chicken but the meat was firmer. Not realy strange however I thought that it was illegal to eat those. Steve
American Alligator has been off the endangered species list for a number of years now. They did a marvelous come-back and are again a nuisance in some places. I’m pretty sure you have to have a license though.
Armadillo (Hoover Hogs). Just clean with a knife and a hammer and deepfry. Some can carry leprosy, so look for a discolored panceas. If so, bury it.
This is very interesting. No armadillos where I live, so I had no idea about them carrying leprosy. How does someone identify the pancreas? I couldn’t even identify my own, much less that of an armadillo. Seriously, that would be a tough call.
Around here, we have to be careful of worms in the trout and salmon in the warm/hot months of summer. Worms are nasty to eat. The dams on the rivers slow down the flow of the water, allowing it to warm up and then the worms get into the fish (I don’t know how).
We also have to steer clear of jackrabbits – boils and tularemia at times. Boils are indicators that the meat will be soft and infected. Tularemia is a disease that can be passed on to humans.
Folks, be sure to thoroughly cook your wild game. Better to be safe than sorry.
Greetings. if you want to stock up on spices at low prices go to the bulk spice dealers on the internet. I get all mine on there in 1 pound bags for about what you would pay for a small container of them at the grocery store. or try a health food store. I get a 5 pound bag of yeast for $15 there instead of the $5 for 4 ounces at the supermarket. Check around you can get many things you need for one heck of a lot less then at the ordinary stores.
Bullion and dried onions, Dude. A bit of bullion improves just about any meat. Look in the Mexican stores for ham (Jamon, in Spanish). If the garden fails chili, even made with raccoon, is crummy without onion. It’s way too easy to dry yourself. Don’t pay the store prices. Mince onion small. Spread out on a screen or dishcloth, in the sun. Comb through it with a fork or your fingers once or twice during the day. It’s uaually dry by dark.
Sorry, this got put in the wrong place! Wasn’t supposed to be a reply to Mr. Muszynski.
Snake,it tasted like chicken fried fish.
I liked how you included your shotgun, boots and underwear! Really funny. My first encounter with a raccoon was a little different. Since I live in a suburban area, I was awoken to garbage cans being dumped over and running out with a flashlight, no gun, and fully dressed. Didn’t get no raccoon to try. :(
True story of survival -
So, I walk into a market (Mercado) in Guatemala and talk to this gal selling chili’s. I speak fluent Spanish & asked her for the chili’s that are the least spicy. She hands me a couple of these little green spears from Satan’s personal quiver (unbeknownst to me) and assured me they were mild.
Me, being me, asked her several more times & asked for a taste but she would not allow it so I trusted her. As I left I winked at her and said I would report back how it made our ceviche taste – didn’t want any gringo/wedo influences.
I chopped them up and decided to bite into one about the size of the head of a nail on a tortilla chip. Within seconds I my mouth experienced TEOTWAWKI – Mad Max in all, and my newly blood shot eyes were tearing uncontrollably. Thirty minutes & a quart of beer later, I was able to speak.
The next day I went back to the Mercado and asked her if she sold these to the US Military because I was sure that it was the base ingredient for Agent Orange. Her husband just about fell over laughing but she did not find it amusing – probably thought it was a waste of perfectly good chili’s.
Bear, cariboo (very dry – if making sausage need to add lots of fat), elk, deer, salmon, char, rout, bass, and a couple of unknown things I asked not to be told of but which tasted great.
Add worchestershire sauce to the lst. Put over meat with some garlic poder, tastes amazing.
Also soya sauce – again with garlc powder – over chicken it crisps nicely without having to fry.
Dog in Korea was the strangest. They cooked the legs up in a stew with Kimchi (pickled cabbage). Taste was very gamy. It smelled really bad as well. The Koreans really loved it.
Had turtle once. Someone accidentally snagged one in a pond on a fishing trip, and we had someone along who knew what to do with it. Wish I’d paid better attention.
As for spices, there is a bulk food store near here (Eastern Ky) where I’m shopping more and more. I recently bought a four ounce tub of ground cinnamon for fifty-three cents. Similarly low prices on the other common spices.
Hey, Knotthead, I’m here in E. KY. also. I’ll shamelessly beg if you tell me where to find a bulk food store around here. All I know of locally is Wally-world.
As for weird food I have eaten: Rustler’s Roost in Phoenix, AZ serves fried rattler with cucumber sauce. It’s delicious. Or is that too mainstream for weird?
Catherine, the place is Yoder’s Bulk Foods in Hindman. It is run by the Amish, I believe, and they seem to repackage bulk foods into more practical sizes for family use. Seem to be great prices, and stuff you can’t find a Wally-World, like un-milled grain. I’ve never inquired about buying in bulk from them, as I haven’t come to that point yet, but I will see if I can find out something and come back with the answer here.
Texas Field Rat. Not ration. Rat. It was under a prickly pear cactus next to an oak tree and I thought it was a rabbit due to only being able to see it’s fur. Killed it with a sharp stick and pulled it out of the hole it was in. Figured out then it was a good sized rat. Skinned it, checked the liver for spots and the edges were smooth.
Put it on a stick and roasted over open flame. Delicious. Tasted just like chicken with all that striated meat.
They say rat takes on the properties of what you cook it in. i.e. if you cook it in garlic and butter, it take on that heavy garlic flavor. Never had the opportunity to poke myself a NYC rat for dinner, but I suppose that if the SHTF, they would be on the menu for some.
Jason, I admire that you ate it once you killed it, but… identify your target! First rule of guns is “It’s loaded!” Don’t take anyone’s word that it’s not, it’s loaded until YOU look and verify.
Second rule of guns is “Identify your target!” No shooting just because it moves, (or it’s furry).
Gee Midge, Jason killed his rat with a sharp stick. Who said anything about guns? Baseball bats don’t kill people, jealous husbands with baseball bats kill people. ;-0
(alphabetically)
Alligator (Very often-I live in Florida), Ants (in chocolate)
Bear
Cactus
Deer
Elk, eel
Grasshoppers
Marigolds, Moose, mudwasp larvae (they are green and taste like grass)
Rat
Squirrel
I still want to try snakes and turtles. I will never eat grubs, they look like little pus-balloons.
As for the survival spice list, you have to add bullion, soy sauce, and hot sauce or cayenne powder. BBQ sauce can make almost anything taste like pork.
I agree about grubs, if given the choice between grubs or starvation, I’ll starve.
One spice that should be in everyone’s BOB, cupboard and supplies is Tobasco sauce, or a reasonable facsimilie. Never leave home without it.
as to what critters I’ve eaten… from northern MN, if it’s here, I’ve tried it, except skunk- no amount of sauce will eliminate that smell. As kids we used to spear frogs for the legs, boiled snails and our local version of lobster: crabs (we actually thought they were baby lobsters, but we were naive kids. Now I’m only naive.:( )
One of my sisters used to threaten my life if her kids ate anything I cooked and they got sick from it- I’m still alive and so are they, so not all must have been as bad as thought.
Chuckling, MD- you wear skivvies? The neighbors have often risked spotting me wearing only a pair of mocassins and shotgun. :X oops.
Shy III
Ate pipihi (black Hawaiian snails about 1/4″) that my wife’s cousin pulled out of the ocean. He was looking for ophihi (limpets) but they’re getting rare. Boiled the pipihi in a soup can on the grill after serving up dinner for my oldest daughter’s first birthday. Not bad.
I’ve eaten all manner of fish (raw and cooked) and seaweed, squirrel, dandelions and plantain from my kinda weedy lawn, and lots of bugs from when I used to ride a motorcycle around without a full face helmet. Just smile and chew–no need to stop for lunch.
hung out with my dad and uncles, we spent the night getting black out drunk on cazacha, this fawl tasting brazilian liquor. the next day for breakfest we had boiled pig guts and rice, thought they were fuçking with me or somthing but I was hungy and they were all eating it so I had half a bowl. not the best hang over food.
Australian possum, sea urchin, thresher shark, wild goat, abalone intestines, and huhu beetle grubs, all in New Zealand. All quite good.
I grow various herbs in my garden, and one must-have among those is lovage. Cooking a few sprigs of lovage along with almost anything makes it taste more hearty and savory, while unlike MSG-ridden ramen seasoning/ bouillon cubes or your average commercial soy sauce, it’s actually good for you.
I’ve eaten Grub’s a couple times, just swallow them whole, when you bite into them, they pop in your mouth, nasty as hell…
Prickly pear jelly (sorry, pretty pedestrian!). Beautiful, gorgeous dark pink/purple color, made by a really cool pastor’s wife, absolutely wonderful on a plain soda cracker.
Good gracious, coons are such filthy animals, and carry so many really nasty parasites…cook everything thoroughly (unless death from starvation is imminent, I suppose…) and wash your hands!
According to Jeff Beringer who is a furbearer resource biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation “Raccoon meat is some of the healthiest meat you can eat.”
It’s all what you’re used to eating. I grew up eating raccoons, squirrel and groundhog yum, yum.
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