tartysuz

Recently, rpm45 alerted me to a section in The Joy of Cooking entitled "About Squirrel." Although brief, it includes everything you ever wanted to know about cooking and eating squirrel (apart from walnut catsup, the condiment that supposedly complements squirrel -- it must have been so ubiquitous when Rombauer and Rombauer Becker wrote the book that they didn't include it):

Gray squirrels are the preferred ones; red squirrels are small and quite gamey in flavor. There are, proverbially, many ways to skin a squirrel, but some hunters claim the following one is the quickest and cleanest. It needs a sharp knife.

There follows detailed instructions as promised, accompanied by crisp yet gruesome how-to drawings that involve garden gloves and a boot. There is also a drawing showing the proper technique for skinning a rabbit, which reminds me of that scene in Roger and Me, when Michael Moore visits the woman who sells rabbits "for pets or food." *shudder*

Anyway, I made an icon of the most advanced step in the squirrel-skinning course. It accompanies my recipe entries, which I keep under friends lock because they're not ready to be inflicted on the public!