I almost skipped this one. The leather folder fell open to a page with “READ THIS TWICE BEFORE YOU START” scrawled across the top margin in Amos’s handwriting, underlined hard enough to tear the paper. Below it, in smaller letters: “no i aint jokin.”
Recipe No. 2 is skunk. I didn’t believe it either until I read the whole thing. Amos wasn’t a man who wrote down bad ideas twice.
Recipe No. 2: Skunk, Prepared Safely
Ingredients
- 1 skunk, freshly killed, winter coat preferred
- 2 quarts cold water
- 1/4 cup salt
- 1/4 cup vinegar
- 2 tablespoons lard or bacon grease
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 2 carrots, chopped
- Salt and black pepper
- Flour for dusting
- Clean sack or burlap — “DO NOT USE YOR WIFES GOOD DISHRAG SHE WILL HAVE YOR HEAD”
Procedure
Step 1 — The scent glands. This is the part that makes or breaks the whole operation. Skunks have two scent glands on either side of the anus. You remove these first, before anything else, and you do it outside. Find them with your fingers, press a sharp knife around each one, lift them out without poking holes. Throw them in a hole and bury them. Wash your hands with cold water and vinegar. Do this step wrong and you will be eating the memory of it for days.
Amos’s margin note: “if yor hands stink after this you already messed up. throw it to the dogs and start over.”
Step 2 — Skin and clean. After the glands are gone, skin the skunk just like you would a rabbit. The pelt is worth keeping if it’s winter. Remove the entrails, keep the heart and liver if you want them. Rinse the carcass thoroughly in cold running water.
Step 3 — The brine soak. Mix the 2 quarts cold water with the 1/4 cup salt and 1/4 cup vinegar. Submerge the skunk completely. Soak for a minimum of 4 hours, overnight if you’ve got the time. Change the brine once if the water clouds up. This pulls out any remaining musk and firms up the meat.
Step 4 — Cook. Remove from brine, pat the meat dry. Dust lightly with flour, salt, and black pepper. Heat the lard or bacon grease in a heavy skillet. Brown the skunk on all sides until it’s got good color — maybe 5 minutes per side. Add the onion, carrots, and enough water to come halfway up the meat. Cover. Simmer low and slow for 2 hours, tipping the pot to baste every 30 minutes or so. The meat should fall apart when it’s done.
Serve with potatoes and cornbread. Amos served it with whatever was in the cellar, which usually meant turnips.
What It Actually Tastes Like
Skunk meat, when you do it right, tastes somewhere between rabbit and dark-meat chicken. It’s greasier than rabbit but more tender than squirrel. There is a faint wildness to it — something nutty, maybe — but nothing that says “skunk.” If you do the glands wrong, the whole thing tastes like burned rubber and regret. That’s the line Amos drew so hard it tore the page.
Why Skunk, and Why Amos Wrote It Down
Amos raised six kids through the Depression on a sawmill wage that sometimes didn’t show up. He hunted what was there. Skunk wasn’t a novelty. It was protein that didn’t cost a dime, walking through the yard at midnight, and when you’re feeding eight mouths on nothing, you don’t turn your nose up at free meat. You learn to do it right.
His last margin note on this page: “i have eat worse and paid for it too.”
A Few Practical Notes
- Winter skunks taste better. They’re fattened up and the fur is prime. Summer skunks are leaner and the musk is harder to manage.
- If the skunk sprayed recently — you’ll know — skip it. The meat absorbs that oil and no brine in the world will save it.
- Roadkill skunk is still skunk. If it’s fresh and not busted open, it’s usable. Amos had one margin note about this too: “road deer is venison and road skunk is dinner. i dont see the problem.”
Next from the folder: Recipe No. 3 — Possum and Sweet Potatoes. Amos has a note on that page: “tastes better than it looks which aint sayin much.”