On Cooking Mice

From personal experience, the best way to eat mice is to throw them into the fire whole. And after about 15 minutes or so you've got crispy critters. A little hot sauce and some skewered grass hoppers( pluck the legs, they'll stick in your craw) and you've got a high protein survival dish. :yeeha:

mc

 

This sounds so good cant wait to try it
yummy

 

This took place in a primitive skills workshop. I'll only do it again if I have to.
Didn't taste too bad though.


mc

 

The following is from 'Apicius de re Coquinaria', generally acknowledged as the first cookbook. Written about the 1st c. BC. by a roman gourmet.
The recipe is for dormouse but Im sure you could substitute plain old american "mickeys".

[396] GLIRES (Stuffed Dormouse)

IS STUFFED WITH A FORCEMEAT OF PORK AND SMALL PIECES OF DORMOUSE MEAT TRIMMINGS, ALL POUNDED WITH PEPPER, NUTS, LASER, BROTH. PUT THE DORMOUSE THUS STUFFED IN AN EARTHEN CASSEROLE, ROAST IT IN THE OVEN, OR BOIL IT IN THE STOCK POT.

[GR] From my recent readings, a good substitute for laser could be garlic (mentioned as a standard Roman dish in so many places, but not at all in this book). The Dormouse is a fat arboreal rat-sized creature. So you can't get dormice? Neither can we! There was an executive decision made by Emma Turkington and myself that most 'exotic' animals taste like chicken anyway. We substituted chicken breasts, stuffed them and roast them, and then, in the fine tradition of early cookery, put currants and chives to give them a dormouse 'look'. Very amusing. Very Roman.

If you would like to read more recipes from Apicius this is the website.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3296/recipe.htm

And I am also reminded of the Ratcatcher in the Phantom of the Opera:
"And they make lovely pies...."

 

A few years back I watched a report on these people eating mice and they thought maybe there was a link between them eating mice and the Bolo Virus. But I don't think that they ever found a connection between the two. However it was really gross watching them eat these things. They would take the dead mouse and wrap the whole thing in a big green leaf and place it over charcoal and let it cook for a while. When it was done they would unwrap the mice, pull the skin off and then start dinning on the little creature. I'm not sure if they even gutted the little creatures or not.

I guess I thought they were as gross as my in-laws think of me when I eat squirrels and rabbits. But at least I skin and gut the animals before cooking them.

 

Can anyone provide a link for cleaning them? You DO clean them, don't you? Also, does anyone have a place to sell the hides? I might as well make a little extra cash on the side...

 

Read G. Gordon Liddy's book, "Will". He'll tell you how to cook and eat a rat.

 

Same here only in southern Arizona. Threw them in the fire, unskinned or cleaned. Smelled awful, tasted almost as bad. I'll only do it again if dead drunk and I don't drink.

Skinned and cooked pack rats on the same trip were good and eaten frequently and would do again (sober).

 

Yum Yum - DINNER!

 

That was very interesting, though probably more than I wanted to know about the dietary contributions of mice.

Jena

 

My snakes love them. Just don't thaw them in the microwave

 

The word popcorn kept crossing my mind as I was reading this thread. Now, Tango, I know why :haha:

Kathy

 

I love this!

A doormouse was a slow rat as well. They were easy to catch and the Romans had a clay vessel by the door in which they kept the captured ones. They would fatten them with scraps as well. The vessels had little air holes too small for the rats to escape.

 

The photo is actually a dearmouse. Its easy to id because of the crisp line separating the white from brown. Although you cannot see it in the photo, the line continues to the end of the tail. The tail is hairy, unlike a house mouse. This mouse species is the main resevoir of hantavirus that you hear about. The danger comes when you stir up a pile of fresh droppings and breath the dust. To eliminate the risk, just dampen with chlorox water before you sweep.

 

cooking mice is a mistake. They are, by far, best eaten raw.

Swampdweller

 

I love the picture of the little children carrying their mice on sticks. My son thought it was very funny too!

 

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Well geeeezzzzz.........

So you mean I've been eating the WRONG kind of furry little critters all this while?
.