Ever Prepare or Eat Groundhog?

Ever Prepare or Eat Groundhog?

Also called Woodchuck or Whistle Pig, the Groundhog is a mammal that can be eaten (or course!).

As part of a continuing exploration of feral foods in the Sun-Times piece, I'd be interested in knowing if anyone here has experience preparing and/or eating the Groundhog.

No experience, but I know that if any one well-known cookbook is going to have a recipe for it, it's The Joy of Cooking, and indeed, the chapter on game has instructions for prepping and cooking woodchuck.

Katie wrote:No experience, but I know that if any one well-known cookbook is going to have a recipe for it, it's The Joy of Cooking, and indeed, the chapter on game has instructions for prepping and cooking woodchuck.

Thanks, Katie. We, of course, have JoC on our shelves.

Still eager to hear of anyone who has experience cooking or tasting this beast.

Second hand experience only. One of my college roommates grew up very poor in rural Missouri.
He used to talk about eating groundhog stew. I remember him saying it was very fatty and not as good as squirrel.

For two years all three of my roomates were wildlife biology majors, so I got used to eating lots of wild game when they cooked.

wesuilmo wrote:Second hand experience only. One of my college roommates grew up very poor in rural Missouri.
He used to talk about eating groundhog stew. I remember him saying it was very fatty and not as good as squirrel.

For two years all three of my roomates were wildlife biology majors, so I got used to eating lots of wild game when they cooked.

I'm kind of surprised to hear that groundhog could be fatty, as these little game animals tend to be lean (and so brining and moist cooking is usually required). Guess it depends a lot on what they eat and, of course, their "lifestyle choices."

I'd be interested in knowing if you had any other relatively obscure game animals.

It depends on what you mean by obscure. Lots of uncommon wild geese: Snow, Blue, Giant Canada, and
way too many Canada. Unusual species of ducks: rednecks, scaups, canvasbacks and the usual teal and
mallards. You can tell the diving ducks by their flavor, they taste like mud. Sandhill crane from South Dakota,
these aren’t legal in Missouri. Bullfrogs in the summer. Doves in the fall. They ate opossum one weekend
when I wasn’t there and the least tasty thing was crow.

I learned to like smoked carp which was always a junk fish when I was growing up. Another junk fish I
found I liked was fried buffalo while it was still hot. We butchered fried a seventy pound alligator snapping
turtle and it did taste just like white meat fried chicken. Some also ate cooked turtle eggs, I did not for
reasons I don’t remember.

We had deer from Missouri, moose from Canada, elk from Wyoming and oryx from New Mexico.

Rattlesnake stew which probably isn’t that unusual except for the fact that they were raised in an aquarium
on top of the TV in our living room over three years. That and the live bats in the refrigerator really put a
damper on bringing girls back to our place, and maybe the experiment with the brown recluse spiders in the attic.

wesuilmo, wild stuff. Major taboo-breaking applause for eating your pets -- I guess you weren't too attached to the snakes?

No manatee? (The other white meat.)

Hi- I've had woodchuck a few times, but I haven't had it for years. As I remember, it had a taste similar to rabbit. We used to bake it in the oven. Woodchucks can do a lot of damage to fruit trees, and so when I was growing up, my Father had a trap set up on the farm for them. Back then, we had mostly people from the South working for us, and some of the employees would regularly check the trap, and take home any found woodchuck, so they could have it for dinner. When there was more woodchuck than they could eat that day, the employee would give us some of the butchered animal.

We also on occasion used to eat sparrows, which we also trapped. Sparrows love to eat cherries. We now spray our cherry trees with grape kool aid. The birds hate the taste of it.

Hope this helps, Nancy

Hi- I can't believe that I am the only person here who has had groundhog. There has to be be some people who had it while growing up in the South. Most of the Southerners who worked on our farm while I was growing up, knew what to do with it. Thanks, Nancy

wesuilmo may I introduce you to Cathy2?

I had groundhog a couple times, but haven't had it in over 10 years. It was probably closest to raccoon in taste, kind of tough, and not something that left me dying for more. Both times it was braised in red wine and chicken stock w/aromatic vegetables and had a flavor that was somewhere between dark chicken meat and beef. It didn't really taste gamey to me, but the texture was still tough considering the method of preparation. If you want a groundhog in the spring I could probably round one up. A friend of mine has a farm that is infested with them.



We didn't eat that one (just burned it because...um...we just burned it). I don't have any photos of cooked ones, but here's a shot of a beaver being prepared using the same method:



The pan just goes in a smoker at around 300 for 4 hours or so with the meat flipped every 30 minutes or so.