HOW TO COOK A POSSUM

I have been away from my blog a long time - I went to my daughter's for the Christmas holidays. She is, as she styles it, a Luddite who does not have a computer! I suppose I could have gone to a coffee house or somewhere and latched on to a computer, but I don't know how to do this. Certainly I couldn't take my laptop with me. T.he long plane flight to the east coast was gruesome enough without anything else to carry. I don't think I can take that kind of flight again by myself.

We did a lot of cooking and partying and that was fun. On one meal we were consulting that old favorite "The Joy of Cooking" and came across some wonderful recipes for wild game. Mrs. Rombauer had everything, together with some lighthearted sketches of skinning rabbits, and eviscerating squirrels. Apparently you can eat anything, although you must be very very hungry to do this. There is a how-to recipe for armadillo "porklike in flavor," woodchuck, and even a frequent visitor of mine, the javelina, or peccary. If you have ever seen a javelina I don't think you would want to eat it.

But my favorite is the instruction for cooking a possum, which begins, "If possible, trap 'possum and feed it on milk and cereals for 10 days before killing" This is followed by boiling and scraping and removing some ominous sounding small red glands. Serve with turnip greens. I can't imagine keeping this animal for ten days in a little pen and feeding it milk and cereal - one might tend to grow fond of it.

You just can't beat "The Joy of Cooking" . My own copy is long gone because the spine came off from years of use. I hope the new version is as robust.

Happy New Year!