Squirrel Gravy

Squirrel hunting with dogs has become increasingly popular. There was a time, during the Great Depression years in the 1920’s and 30’s that it was a way of survival. Mothers of farm boys like my dad and his brothers in Middle Tennessee depended on the results of the boy's squirrel hunting

escapades to put meat on the table. Fried squirrel, gravy and biscuits was mighty fine fair back then and remains a southern delicacy for many today. When I see the bragging-rights photos of today’s squirrel hunters with squirrel tails hanging the entire length of the tailgate, I wonder if they are eating all those squirrels.

My dad and his older brother Phillip had a pair of cur dogs they hunted on squirrels, and any other types of furbearing game, and they were good ones. Their names were Pat and Mike, taken I’m sure from the adventure stories of two fictitious Irishmen that were popular in that day, the Abbot and Costello forerunners perhaps. But my dad also still-hunted squirrels with the Remington Model 41 Targetmaster he and his brother Phil bought from Sears and Roebuck Company for five dollars brand new in around 1935. I still have that rifle in perfect shooting order today.

One of my dad’s favorite stories was a hunt with that rifle when squirrels were feeding in a hickory on the ridge above the home place. He said he laid on his back with several .22 shorts in his mouth and shot at the squirrels feeding lower in the tree and moving upward. He would move the bolt of the rifle just enough to partially kick the spent shell out, which he would remove with his fingers before replacing it with a fresh round taken from the supply in his mouth. He said when the squirrels stopped feeding and he started to pick up his squirrels, he had killed six. I’m sure the dining room table was a happy place that night.

I was talking with someone the other day about eating squirrel and the subject of squirrel brains came up. My dad loved the brain of the squirrel and urged me when I started hunting on my own to shoot the squirrel in the neck rather than the head. The cleaned head of the squirrel was fried with the other pieces and cracked open to reveal a single white kernel that was the brain of the squirrel. I’m sure I tried it when I was a kid but don’t remember liking it enough to want to try it again.

Each morning I sit and watch the squirrels feeding on camphor berries outside the Florida room window. I don’t hunt squirrels anymore but I would belly up to a table of fried squirrel gravy and biscuits without a minute’s hesitation.