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How To Cook A Possum – Old Time Possum Recipe

Interested in Cooking Some Possum?

Interested in eating possum? This page is serious. Actual Possum Recipe. Lots of tips and tricks for catching and cooking possums!

I’m not sure why but there’s just something funny about possums to northerners. Would you all laugh about a Crock-pot Beef Recipe? or a recipe for Lobster Thermidor? But when it comes to great meals like Crock-pot Possum or a Possum Stew some people find something funny  about it.

Well, I don’t know what you think about possums but us hillbillies takes ’em serious. However, the stereotype of hillbillies eating possum are over exaggerated. The truth is that in most hillbilly homes you’d be lucky to see possum on the table two or three times a week. We never have possum more than three days out of the week at my house.

Delicious Possum

Is it true that “you people” eat possums?

Once I was in Brooklyn and a guy from Staten Island asked me if it were true that “you people” eat possums. He was dead serious, I suppose he learned all about hillbillies from watching television, he had never been out of New York.

With a very serious face I told him that yes, of course we eat possums but not every day. I told him that I went two or three days in a row without getting to eat possum and now that I was working in New York I couldn’t seem to find it in any of the restaurants.

I never told him any different.

Somewhere on Staten Island there is an old dude who tells his grandchildren, “The eat possums all the time down in Kentucky. I met a real live hillbilly once…”

Where Do Ya Get Your Possum?

Some of the more wealthy (and lazy) hillbillies buy their possums. You can get your possum for the cost of a few shotgun shells. Possums are particularly fond of garbage dumps so a trip to the dump, late at night with beer, flashlights and shotguns can be loads of fun.

Think about it, you’re out there working to put dinner on the table but you get to have fun at the same time! If you are a northerner who lives in a town you probably have possums in your garbage cans. If you can’t shoot a gun where you live take your son, or some buddies, out on garbage night with some baseball bats.

And watch those alleys close for some roadkill possum! Get up early before your neighbors find them!

Roadkill Possum Delight

A lot of the newer generation is depending more on road kill possums (If you go this route make sure the critter aint too ripe). With all the roads being built through the hills road kill possums have become more and more common.

Every day fewer people are hitting the garbage dumps and hillsides with shotguns and flashlights and turning to the easy road kill. As a result the most common possum meal is now sausage.

We often hear about how technology has made people more lazy and here is yet another sad case.

Is Technology Making Hillbillies Lazy?

Today more hillbillies are ready to grab that free easy meal on the roadside instead of chasing it down and shooting it themselves. The sad thing is the loss of culture and tradition. How much longer will the joyous day when a man takes his son out to shoot his first possum be with us? Will future hillbilly boys be denied this rite of passage?

Skinning Gutting And Cleaning Your Possum?

How To Cook Possums

Once you get your possum to the house you’re going to have to clean it. Yep, fur, blood and guts.

Most fancy city slickers, like the one in the picture on the right, are shocked when they find out they have to skin the possum.

If you need lessons on how to skin a possum or if you don’t want to get your hands dirty then you should probably just go to Wallymart or someplace and buy yourself some Possum Treat, that way all you have to do is open up a can and you’re eating possum.

Actual Country Recipe For Opossum:

Once you get your possum skinned out and cleaned you will need:

>> 8 Big Taters
>> 2 big spoons of butter
>> 1 big spoon of sugar
>> a pinch or two of salt
>> Thyme, marjoram or pepper to taste
>> 1 cooking pot with a good tight lid

Put the possum in the pot with just enough water to keep it from burning, cover with a good tight lid.

Possums take longer to cook than taters so wait until your possum has stewed for about an hour before you add the taters to the pot.

Place the taters along the sides of the possum and mix in sugar, salt and your choice of thyme, marjoram or pepper to taste.

Every 15 minutes or so take off the lid and baste the possum with the juices.

By now the possums own fat will have rendered and the water will now make some delicious possum gravy.

When the possum is tender and the meat falls off the bones mix a little flour, if needed, to the water/possum fat and tater mixture.

Possum Cooking Alternate Method

Poke your possum with a big sharp stick and hold it over the campfire or coal stove until it is crispy.

Here are a couple videos that might be of interest to some of the more fancy readers of this page.

Chef Folse is Cooking some Possom and Sweet Potatoes in South Louisiana!

 

How I Cook Possum – Wallace Knifeworks & Homestead

 

Does oppossum meat taste good? | Field & Stream
https://www.fieldandstream.com/answers/hunting/small-game/butchering-cooking-rabbits-squirrels-and-other-small-game/does-oppossum-m

Get this 11 x 17 1/2 inch tin sign from Amazon

Written by David Slone, Copyright 2008 all rights reserved and may not be copied or republished in any way without express permission.

97 replies on “How To Cook A Possum – Old Time Possum Recipe”

Shotgun shells can be expensive…
I would just like to add that for those who have a tight budget, you can kill two possums with one stone, as long as you throw it hard enough.

I have another recipe for you:
Possum kabobs

Ingredients:
Possum
Stick
Fire

Instructions:
#1. Apply possum to stick
#2. Apply possum to fire
#3. Apply possum to mouth

An alternate method would be to throw away the possum and eat the stick! Thanks for another possum recipe!

Hillbilly UK advanced possum cooking advice (recipes on clearance of cheques – more later)…before above cooking methods are undertaken – it is important to take aforementioned sharp stick and poke possum with rigorous, but gentle thrusts. Many tales of ‘said dead possum’ being infact commatosed after impact with untaxed hillbilly truck and then inserted into pot or fire …then coming round is too numerous to mention…very distressing!!…For the possum that is.

Oh yea, that should be a part of any good possum recipe! First before sure the possum isn’t playing dead, they are very good at that.

Hello “Your Reader” and thank you for the good word about the post. As is stated clearly the content on this blog is not allowed to be republished on other websites.

I’ve heard they are very devious and hillbillies are the main cause. I think it’s hillbilly influence at it’s best if you ask me. How else would they become so darn unintelligent…

Ah wus sayun urleer bout them coons, purty much a saim thang gows fer them possms.They a onnry critter ta be shore,yew better make dang shore hes deyud afore yew try an skin hiyum.I maid thayut err……only one time, tore mey up he diyud.Fer a peese uf dawg fewd, a coon’ud be yer best frind fer life,,yew caint bribe a possum.

weeeeell dawgy, now ats the way to get her in yer stomach ah think weve got some possums in er old barn, ima go get them little rascals and cook em up, good eatin and good protein!!!! yeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaw!!!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. SURE THEY HELP CONTROL THE MICE POPULATION AND BUGS. BUT TO EAT THEM? THEY COULD HAVE RABIES. ILL GOD HELP YOU. THEY LOOK LIKE RATS…..

For the record, to my knowledge there has never been a confirmed case of a possum with rabies….. No one know why

I say if it cant out smart me or my dogs im eating it, and with a possum if it climes a tree im heading up after it and my dog will meat it at the botum b4 it bounces

Very interesting. I’m researching to prepare myself for the financial collapse of the socialist states of america amd had just got done looking at articles on skinning and preparing squirrels, then went to google to find out about Possum and landed here.

How’s the taste? I’m kinda grossed out thinking about eating squirrels and possum, but damn, if SHTF and my family is hungry, I’ll stop at nothing to feed them. Come to think of it, it’s not so much the eating part that grosses me out, but the skinning, gutting, etc before it looks like food instead of a dead rodent.

What else can I eat that are not traditionally game animals like deer, turkey, rabbit, etc?

Can I eat Raccoons? Skunk? Someone mentioned rabies.. What if a dead animal has it and I cook it and eat it.. My guess is that cooking would kill the virus and transfer only occurs from poor handling/hygene.

so i have been brain tanning, and i figured i would make use of road kill by skinning and using the furs. My mom and sister are flipping out saying that if i dont wear gloves, that i will get diseases. I think its just that they dont know anything about skinning or about possoms… i am wondering what your experience is. Do you and your family wear gloves? and have u ever known anyone to get sick from handling possoms?

i like coons and turtul also, i my self havint eaten skunk but my grand parints talk about it, and if i had a chanse to i would, and ur best bet is 2 try and not eate animals that u dont kill or seen kiled, unles from a butcher, i havent ever eaten road kill but i reken if i didnt have eny thing else id die full, and gloves r alwes a plus hell use the ones by the role that ranchers use that go to ur sholder lol cheap

hey ya’ll!! I’m from down south and possum for breakfast is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and my family. catch ’em everyday down by my outhouse!!!!! roasted with butter is best. Enjoy!!!!!

I am mostly native American on both sides. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a skilled bow hunter taught by his father. My grandmother and mother were talented at making the most out of whatever he brought home with him. Sometimes it was something more mainstream like quail or venison. Usually it was more traditionally ‘hillbilly’ fare like squirrel, raccoon, snake, or groundhog. Consequently I ate stewed opossum as a child. It was delicious.

Since then I’ve traveled extensively and have tried dragonfly curry, pickled eel, stuffed bull’s testicles, fried earthworms, boiled termites, grilled scorpions and all sorts of other local foods that people have been kind enough to want to share with me. Others often refused without even tasting. To me it is sad and small that anyone could be so judgmental without even consulting the evidence. I have eaten well, enjoyed the vast majority of everything I’ve tasted, and have never health problems due to my adventurous tastebuds.

Variety is the spice and the substance of life. There are studies suggesting the more varied a child’s diet, the less prone to become obese and to suffer food allergies and other health problems as an adult.

Consider too that there is no universally acceptable meat. While most Americans can’t get enough hotdogs and hamburgers, an Orthodox Jew would find the pork disgusting and taboo, while a devout Hindu would find beef to be so. Many vegans and vegetarians around the world are repulsed by all meat. There is certainly no consistancy as to why one species is an acceptable food while another is a pet, or is deified or otherwise exalted, or is treated as vermin. Personally I have found that just about anything alive can be tasty and nutritious so long as it is prepared well and shared with good company.

Like 95% of Americans, the meat in my diet consists of either beef, pork, chicken, turkey, or fish/shellfish. For the sake of this conversation, let’s leave aquatic food sources aside. As for the “turf” sources of animal protein, they come from the animals that have responded well to centuries of domestication, and are now able to be mass-produced on giant farms in sufficient quantity to feed the mass of humanity that now spends most of its life sustaining the infrastructure and economy of our great nation rather than sustaining a simple home and a few hungry mouths.

Turns out, all animals are meat, whether you like it or not. Just because possum turned out to be a little too………vicious and wily… to be domesticated, does not mean that it is somehow beneath what we understand to be proper nutrition. The thing is, just as each domestic meat that we are used to eating requires different cooking methods according to their particular flavors and safe doneness temperatures, so goes the preparation of game meat. I believe that this is why Bar-B-Que sauce was invented.

As for dressing your own meat, well, I’m guessing that your favorite cut of meat is a nice filet mignon or a T-bone.
All you gotta do is skin and gut a little possum in your back yard.

Oh, if you’re after skunk, I suggest you brush up on your sharpshooting and use a varmint rifle. Errant buckshot can potentially…umm…
Well, like I said, that’s why they invented Bar-B-Que sauce.

i live in the south and trust me, if you want to eat possum, you need to catch it live then feed it greens for a week or so to clean it out.

I did not see a comment or recipe for possum chitterlings. This may be something I don’t want to prepare myself and don’t trust anybody else to fix either. Maybe I will burn the intestines so the dogs don’t make a nasty mess or perhaps put them up a tree for the puma (possibly bait for a trap). But can you eat mountain lion?

I’m a tv producer and I’m looking for the ultimate hillbilly chef for a new tv show. Someone with a big personality who knows how to turn roadkill coon into a four star meal.

Would any of you happen to know someone like that?

I’m from SW Georgia and Possums were a main stay in our diet back in the old days. A lot of these comments sound like jokes but back in the day, if not for possums, many families would not have had meat on the table. I can cook a possum like a work of art, I can cook the P out of possum, when I get through with it, it’s ossum {a little pun} get it?
Older heads did not skin possums, they burned the fur off of them a little at a time in a process called swenging. They burn a little, scrape with a knife, burn a little, scrape with a knife until you get him clean down to the skin. Then you wash him{ back then, it was with lye soap but now I guess you could use dawn. The head and skin should be left intact because they were considered to be the best parts. The possum was oven roasted with sweet potatoes after being par boiled about an hour and sprinkled heavy with black pepper. I remember being at the table many a days with possum fat dripping
from both elbows. EAT MO POSSUM

i dont know why you do not like possum bet you aint even tried it even once he is gona be christmas dinner for me and the yungens

I trap tons of possums, but I apply the SSS rule, Shoot, Shovel, Shut-Up. They go under a fruit tree, those delicious apricots, walnuts, pears, apples, etc, indirectly are …. possum!

Possums and skunks are on the you’d have to be starving to eat it list around here. There’s better eating, and yer possum or skunk can be fed to the chickens, or used as bait for something better. Yep, puma or coyote would be luscious and tasty compared to possum or Pepe LePew.

Skunks CAN carry rabies, I dunno about the low body temperature thing with possums, I’d have to check it out, but word is from those who have eaten them, they’re greasy and kinda blah. As I said, use ’em for bait for something better, or feed your chickens or feed a tree.

The only way to eat a possum is to get a white oak board the same size of the possum .lay possum on board ,salt & pepper .and a little corn mash on it
cook in oven for tho hours ,at 325* . take out let cool for ten min. then give the possum to the dogs and eat the white oak board . Kinda grease but got a lot of fiber in it

muskrat,possum,squrrel,rabbit,raccone,rattlesnake,snapping turtle,bear,deer and some
I cant remeber, I am a 79 year old hillbilly. and you can add sea food

Oh please I don’t know anyone now a days that eat possum. I live in the south. And anyone who would is really sick!! You that was trying to act like you are hillbillies try again please!!! The way you were talking is why the south is known as being so stupid!!!! That is why l really try hard not to talk like I am from the south. I know some of you will get mad and some will think it’s funny but it’s not!!!!! Yes possums have a very low temp.so they don’t carry rabies. I have a baby possum I am trying to raise. They are very smart!!! They are really easy to love. I love animals so I could not just let him die or let my cats get him that is really wrong!!! In God’s eyes he is just as beautiful as you or your kids or a dog or cat just like any other animal!!! Don’t judge me, unless you have ever took time to look at them they have 5 fingers and there back feet are like us 4 fingers and a thumb. Take time to look or learn before you down it.

Hello Jeannie – You may have missed the part about this website being humor and satire, It’s a joke :o)

Try pickled possum tails we use in place of chicken in our dumplings we fry the ears with Tatars we always feed em corn for 2wks before we dress em u can debone possum and use or prepare like any other meat possums love to eat other dead animals and usually have a varied taste

I don’t think it is all a joke. I am a damn yankee and I have eaten possum, woodchuck, squirrel, snapping turtle, beaver, and many other meats. The recipe is real, presented in a light hearted way. I am sure that somewhere someone has made a pet of almost every animal, including the standard ones like cows and chickens, etc. Please don’t think that because you have a pet of something, that it means everyone else in the world has to treat it as a pet too. I don’t hold it against you because you have a pet possum, don’t hold it against me that I eat them. I know I can’t convince you, don’t try to convince me Jeannie, Cool?

I lived with my grandma growing up and she would cook anything my cousin could catch in his trap line. I’ve had possum, coon, ground hog, skunk, squirrel, and turtle and it was all good. I think grandma had sweet potatoes and hominy as side dishes for the possum, but I’m not sure. Anyone recommend any side dishes for possum?

Texas Pussums are best if put in a microwave whole , Set it on high power for 45 minutes , It will let you know when its done ( toy will hear it ) ,Place a large towl at the door of the microwave and open the door , Scrape and spoon the pussum gravy off the door walls and top dont worry about some hail , it just helps make the gravy thicker . make inchee ladas , and toe mollies out of the innards . Dice up yhe meat and put it iinqa pie shell with some jallapinos , freeze then slice with a chop saw suck and chew on the slices as they thaw . oh the gravy that runs out on the powell can be licked off with your favorite dog.

No foolin mah friends you cant beat a BBQed possum coon muskrat or beaver. Good eatn. no matter if it is a southern vinigar n spices or the yanke tomater based sause. A BBQed possum sanwich for breakfast gives U what you need to last til a suppur of Possum inards turnip greens and maybe taters n Possum gravy n grits and grandmas home canned apples n grits for deesert. Cant forget the sweet tea either.

I live in California, the city, and there is a possum stuck in a net in my backyard. Thanks for the recipees. My high falootin wife is not going to bee happy when I serve it to her…

I am from a long ancestry of hillbillies, and regardless of the Beverly Hillbillies, we simply don’t eat possums, unless it would be to avoid starving to death. And you would have to be awfully lazy and stupid if you could not just kill and eat a squirrel or a rabbit instead of resorting to eating a possum. My dear departed father’s favorite meat was coon, with squirrel being a close second, but he told me that possum is greasy stinky meat that is just not fit to eat. As for me, coon meat stinks and has a bad flavor to it, but young fried squirrel is very delicious. You have to make mulligan out of the older tougher squirrels, and I am not so crazy about that, but I will eat it when the old woman makes it. She mostly uses them for squirrel mulligan fund-raisers for the church and school every winter. They always sell a lot of it. I use really old squirrels for dog food. Someone should do a really serious PBS program about hillbilly cooking, the way Miss Lucy does for the coon-ass cooking. It amazes me how everybody on PBS cooks everything in plain water, instead of a good flavorful pot liquor. That is one thing that they did get right on Beverly Hillbillies, you never say Granny cook grits or greens or anything without making pot liquor out of hog jowls or ham hocks or something.

Look. ALl these recipes are put here by people trying to pull your leg. They make up a receipe for these disgusting creatures. Then they hope you are dumb enought to actually try it. The best way to cook and eat varmit is this: 1:Pre-Heat Oven to 500 Degrees 2: Place varmit on Oak Board 3: cook for 8 hours 4: Remove from oven 5: Discard Varmit 6: Eat Board

Oh and by the way; Actual hillbilles are from Michigan. Not the South! (just like a bunch of southerners to try and be like anything but a southerner)…can’t really blame them

Hear in Ohio it is achually quiet common to eat. I dont understand why evryone thinks it aint good.

I think all yall been smokin ya undershorys!!! Im the first n my family to b born in ohio. Were from feep in the hills. Perry, johson, letcher, lee counties ky. NONE of us have eaten Opossum. We eat squirrel, groundhog, birds, even a few certain snakes an plants yall would call weeds. AND we resent people calling us mountain folk “hill billies” were APPLACHIAN AMERICANS.

Ohio Joe – You sound like an uppity northerner to me. Perhaps you have missed the entire point of this site because you are obviously taking this as serious when it is but a joke. APPLACHIAN AMERICANS? Well the Appalachians cover a LOT more than just Kentucky so that doesnt make any sense

Possum , properly dressed and placed on a rack in a pan so the grease will drip out when baking is pretty good eating. As to the one posting about squirrel , salted , peppered and rolled in flour and fried is hard to beat, the same for rabbit. Add some fried taters, fried okra, hot biscuits and sweet iced tea makes a meal worthy of kings.

Jeannie, if you’re trying not to be a redneck….a pet possum is a poor start.

to everyone else, I’m surprised there are only a couple of comments about feeding them out before skinning.

I’m all about a free/cheap meal and living off the land, but cages and traps are expensive…a couple $50 traps and $100 feeding cages buys alot of steak dinners. thats why I’m always trying to rig stuff from salvage and metal wire.

I have a box-trap (salvaged wire shelves) with a bait trigger, and a trigger-rope going inside my house. I have a video camera pointed at it, and I call it “the nature channel”. so much fun to watch and trap the possums/racoons/cats… I shoot the cats with a water-hose to piss’m off. The plan is to feed the others out for a few days on corn (and possibly greens after reading above)

Well, I’ll tell you what, after reading all this ankee crap about cooking possums, I realize you’re all full of bullshit!!! I grew up in the scrub in outback Queensland, ( Australia,)……..actually, most people say I didn’t grow up, I was kicked up the arse and told to get up……..bastards!!……….and if it wasn’t for possums and punkins, me and the rest of my family and friends would be scrawny little bastards today. Ever since I can remember, we’d be sent out into the bush with a pea rifle and told not to come back without some sort of tucker, whether it be a sugarbag of possums, a ‘roo, a couple of goannas or a young wombat, or if we were cunning enough, one of the neighbours sheep or a young calf!! Anyway, here is a fair dinkum family recipe for cooking possum, dating back to the early eighteen hundreds when our first convict ancestor got his ” ticket of leave” and headed bush with “Lucy light fingers” O’ Flaherty to open a bark hut shanty and found a dynasty of horse thieves and cattle ” duffers”………… First snare a gnarley possum, kill it, preferably by strangling the bastard. …….don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt, so long as you keep clear of those claws, the bastard goes berserk!!!…….Anyway, it puts the “wild” taste through the meat. My grandma swore by it, she could wring ones neck with one hand while rolling a ciggy. with the other!!! Next, put the skun and gutted possum in a kerosene tin with enough salted water, chopped onions and pigweed to cover with a round smooth river rock of roughly the same weight as the” tree rat”. Simmer gently over open fire for quite a long time, testing the rock every now and then with a long fork. When the fork can penetrate through the rock easily, its done!!! Chuck the possum and eat the rock between two sheets of bark. DELICIOUS!!!!

If God Forbid you are in New York City again, you gotta ask for manicou. Thats what folks from the Caribbean call it. Man-ee-coo. And it is a highly prized and protected game meat for some of them. Ask the Trinis, the Bayjans and the Domineecans if they know anyone who likes it or cooks it or misses it and wants to go huntin’ for it. I actually think if you want high falutin’ New Yorkers to eat hillbilly food you gotta be sneaky about it like Frenchies and the Creoles and call possum manicou, just like you call edible horse cheval.

Some people here are joking some are not. My grandparents would waste nothing. Something the depression taught them. I am reading a book on the slaves. Many of them would pass up a ham or fresh bacon side for a big coon or fat possum. Pot liquor, sweet potatoes. They would parboil it for an hour then put it in a hot oven. Dont knock it till you try it. Did you know goat meat is the most widely consumed meat in the world….

I haint never et me no possum afore, are they any account?
I shore did like them perty wimmin on yore other page a sight though!
I was a trying to read your haint tale about Badfork holler an nin i remebemembered I haint never lernt how ta reed too good yit, but my cousin buferd bill went plum to 4th grade though , and went through 3rd grade 3 times!, so he was perty smart at readin and thangs like that i reckon, but he runned oft and jined the army as never was herd frum agin.
Youn’s has the hillbilliest websight I’ve seen in a coons age!

used to be a hotel in trinity county – lewiston hotel – would have a wild game feast every year, painter, black bear, venison, salmon, opossum, squirrels- good times!

Well, no kidding, I’m cooking a( female) possum that I caught in a trap last night and it really does taste good. The DW( first time tasting ever) says it tatses like frog legs and has the chewy consistency of rabbit.

I have to say, they’re bony and not much meat( compared to a meat rabbit), but the meat is good. Not gamy, not greasy, dark, but delicate and chewy. Light taste, not strong.

Y’all should try muskrat or beaver, They are more lean than a greasy old muskrat and tastier. They are better than beef but not as good as buffalo. All you have to do with them is skin gut and grind them for burgers or roast them until they fall off the bone. Then makes BBQ sauce with ketchup, chili powder, brown sugar onion powder, garlic powder, and liquid smoke. It make one heck of a sandwich meat.. It will have those hillbilly girls swooning and wanting to drag you off to the marring rock because you can cook.

Fergot to mention I am not spoofn y’all, that is a serious BBQ recipe I developed a piece back to use on wart hog pork chops and it works for about any meat. Never tried it on possum though but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work though..

The way you folks are talking and arguing, I surmise that PETA doesn’t stand for People Eating Tasty Animals ?

JDA
Now that question “But can you eat mountain lion?” could be a dangerous question that may evoke some answers that you may not want to read the answer to, considering that this is a humor site. .
Also as has been previously stated, if it can be hunted and don’t whip the hounds, it can be eaten. They are good braised with a mixture of soy sauce and oyster sauce..

What’s wrong with you people? Who the muck wants to eat a possum that’s just GROSS!!!

Possum and racoon are good. I prefer spotted owl but since they are small it takes a bunch of them However, they do taste like chicken so if you can’t get spotted owl, your neighbors chickens might do. especially if they are Free range chickens.

My brother Orville got hitched when he done turned fourteen and a half.

Yep, he shore ‘nough married hisself a dagnabbed possum.

My mamie used ta makes us really tasty pot pies.

We ne’er had none of them fancy chickens and such but Possum & Pelican Pot Pies raised us 14 youngens jus fine.

You’ll should stop in at ‘The Restaurant Downtown’ located right here in Santa Monica. No possum but our house specialty is skunk. Georgia style skunk like I was raised on.

Here at TRDT we bake skunk, broil it, saute it as well as our house creation: Skunk Scampi.
It’s to die for.

Chef Leroy

Roadkill possum is a problem, like any roadkill, in that the impact of the vehicle damages the meat.

i don’t know how to solve the problem, but i do know, i think, that it is a big problem.

it breaks the cells open, i think, which renders the meat inedible.

Variations in that recipe: Gather some fresh mushrooms from over the septic tank, and add a large onion. mmmmmm good.

I cook possum & raccoon the same way…in the smoker. After skinning & cleaning, I soak the meat in the fridge for 24 hours in a smoky brining solution (plain salt will also work). Then I drain & inject the meatiest portions with apple juice & leave in the fridge for another 24 hours. Next use any good rub & coat the meat. Put it in the smoker at the lowest possible temp you can get…preferably around 180 degrees F. Smoke for 6-8 hours depending on temp, and you’ll have the most tender, non gamy meat you can imagine. Dang, now I’m hungry…better go set a few traps!

I’m from southern wva. If you have not tried a young fried squirrel you have no idea what you have been missing

You can eat just about every living thing for survival.wheter its good or not is another story

Just to let the doubting Thomas’s know opossum is extremely good, if cleaned and cooked right. I grew up on critters and deer meat. Bullfrog and snappingturtle are also delusions. Not to mention rabbit. I look shake and bake.
Think about crabs and lobster, I’ve got kin that won’t eat them due to their diet

In Mexico you can get Gato to eat so I guess before I eat a house cat, I will eat opossum. And believe it or not, I did actually come here looking for opossum recipes and to see if they in fact carry any sort of disease or worms or bacteria that one may have to worry about, just in case. I am not going to eat opossum any time soon, but I am not above it, if necessary. So learning that live caught and fed out for a week or so was good information as I have a couple opossums out back that have been eating a lot of dog food lately, again, just in case. I do know that snapping turtles need to be in clean water for a good while before killing. Stop and think about it! Gator tail is often eaten and gators rot their meat. I have eaten gator, squirrel, rabbit, ground hog, snapping turtle, frog legs, deer and rattle snake but I guess I have to say no when it comes to escargot. So in all your city folk sophistication, you will eat escargot and say no to opossum? Hey, that is your right but if things go south, I think one opossum will go much farther on an empty stomach and easier to get. How many snails does it take to fill you up and where do you find them?

With all due respect to garbage pile, and Road Kill Aficionados….Growing up in Georgia in the 50’s, we caught our Possums live with dogs at night………….A Possum was often treed by our Coon Dogs, and I’d climb the tree and shake the Possum out. When scared they “Play Possum and pretend to be dead. Pickem up by the tail avoid contact with the head and your extremities….They sometimes come to and can bite with large sharp teeth.
Said Possum was taken home and put in a chicken coop and fed corn, grain and veggies for about 2 weeks to 30 days to clean their system of all the carrion and other disgusting and unhealthy stuff they will consume. Then they were considered safe to butcher and eat.
Good clean tender meat if prepared right…With sweet potatoes, of course.
Just as an aside, I’ve heard of folks who eat Road Kill, but never actually met anyone who did….Seems to me a good way to become very ill, if you guess wrong…I’ll pass.

When I was jus’ a young’n my doggy die
so my mammy made doggy pie.
Bad, bad pie! Nev’r make doggy pie!

When I’s 11 goin’ on 12 my daddy die
so my mammy made daddy pie.
Bad, bad pie! Nev’r make daddy pie!

Jus’ last week my mammy gonna make
mince-meat pie but ain’t got no mince!
So my mammy maka a possum pie.
Mighty good pie! I’s i’ll eat possum pie
until my mammy die.

Maybe then I try some mammy pie.

I swear I jus’ seen a flying possum!

Dang thing almost flew into the side of the barn and I aint been smokin’ any of that wacky-tobacky either.

Smokin’ possum skin can really fry your mind. My hoodlum buddies tried peer-pressure to get me to try a puff but I fooled ’em and didn’t inhale.

Lucky thing too, cause all them guys went psychitzo a few months later.

I am part Native American and must inform you that by skinning your possum you are losing a lot of flavor. A correctly prepared possum is scalded and scraped like a hog, the skin helps contain the delicious possum juices. Roast your possum with plenty of sweet potatoes and you will dance with joy and whoop gleefully when you sink your teeth into the feast.

Does anybody know how to ketch all the quail and doves you want with fireing a shot? No? Well it’s time you get edgumakaded.
Step 1: beg, borrow, swipe or steal or if you prefer buy a couple pounds of cracked corn.
Step 2: get the biggest jug of the cheapest red wine you can get.
Step 3: pour the red wine over cracked corn in a bowl and let it sit for at least 2 days.
Step 4: dump the wine off the cracked corn and discard it, or drink it if you want.
Step 5: take the wine soaked cracked corn to your favorite bird hunting spo and scatter it.
Step 6: kick back with your best jug and watch.
Step 7. Go and pick up as many drunk birds you want and leave the rest to sober up.
Want a good laugh? Watch a drunk bird try to fly.

I were obliged to die-rectly attend an ole fashion Tanksgivn’ in my home town of Condemned Creek, Mis’sippi last month. Condemmed Crik is right ware it belong, betwixed Sorrowful Falls and just a piece from the Sour County prison.

As I recollect granny nev’r liked turkey none, lest it was fried in 10W-30 Pennsoil and chittlin’ slop. Buts dis year af’er she see-ed that a passel of us city jaspers was acoming home a visitin’ she done aimed to pluck and cooks us a decent gobblr’.

Granny done outdones herselfs! The turkey was fine eatin’! Later af’er sittin’ a spell granny done told us her secret in-grit-e-ents. She said she done stuffed a-hole dang’d live possum inside younder bird and then rightly fried it to tarnation.

I rekon my granny was reared rightly.

I cannot say that I ever tasted any fine possum cuisine but I do have much experience working with the cunning rodents. Back when I was a trapeze artist with Ringling Brothers I used possums in my act.

The crowd loved it when I rode my unicycle across the tightwire 65 feet in the air blindfolded and juggling five live possums. In my forty years in the circus I never took a fall. Sadly I can’t say the same about dropping possums. FYI possums don’t bounce. Splat.

3 day with out water 3 weeks with out food you dead !!! Shelter always … Meat is meat may not be best meal but food !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shucks, I had to move down to Georgia before I could find others who appreciated such delicacies as possum, catfish, wild greens, and the like. Loving it in my corner of the boondocks.
Actually I’m convinced the difference between someone who eats such things as possum, beaver, nutria, et al, is those that know how to properly clean the critters and take off the scent glands, and those who don’t! Why waste perfectly good eatin?

My Grannies, both of them, and my great granny, used to cook and serve possum to us when I was little up to about age 8. Up to age 18 or even later in my early 20’s, I would still eat them whenever I visited because I liked them and grew up on them. I also used to eat racoons as well; they were very good the way my grandparents fixed them, usually baked. The meat was greasy especially on the possums, and kind of crispy and stringy, maybe that’s the way they cooked them. However, that was 40 to 50 years ago and I haven’t eaten a coon or possum since, and I don’t think I would as I found out later in life that they are scavengers. But they sure were good!

Possums are tough to kill with a baseball bat. They can survive with broken ribs & a split-open skull and still manage to run away.

All of you who disdain possum because it’s a scavenger need to shy away from free range chicken and pork as both those animals will eat absolutely anything they find. As far as your seafood goes you might want to scratch crab and lobster off your list. They hang out on the ocean floor waiting for dead things to sink to the bottom. By the way, do you know what organic farmers often use to fertilize those juicy vine ripened tomatoes?

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