Hot tub conversation

After water aerobics, the women often sit in the clubhouse hot tub to warm up after an hour in the cool pool.

A couple of days ago, my wife said, one woman said, “I’ve heard that people eat squirrel. Can you believe that?”

Several expressions of “Yuck” and such followed.

My wife said, “I’ve eaten squirrel.”

“You have?” and “Really?” and “You have eaten squirrel?” followed.

“Yes,” my wife said. “I’ve had squirrel stew and squirrel dumplings and squirrel head soup.”

Oh, my goodness, she might as well have dropped a Baby Ruth in the hot tub.

“Squirrel head soup!!?”

When the exclamations from that sort of petered out, someone said, “And possums. I’ve heard people eat possums.”

More expressions of disbelief.

My wife said she had eaten possum. “In fact,” she said, “some of my relatives had possum for Thanksgiving.” She then said, “They had turkey, too, but the possum was part of dinner.”

That’s the way it was with poor people in rural Arkansas and other parts of the South way back when. Possum and squirrel might be considered “ethnic food” these days, consumed only by black people who otherwise would go hungry.

Nope. Squirrel and possum were food for poor blacks, whites and Southern Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and etc. Wherever there was poverty, you would find squirrel stew and baked possum.

Northern folk always seem proud of their blood sausage (yuck), but frown when considering squirrel and possum?

My wife also told the Northern ladies, “You had to eat carefully, though, so you didn’t bite down on lead shot.” She also had to explain what shot is.

I had squirrel dumplings when I was 5 years old, at my mother’s parents’ house. They warned about the lead shot. I found two.