Aquaculture and aquaponics on a family-sized scale in Maui, Hawaii. They are growing mainly tilapia whose waste they filter out and use to grow food plants.
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Brian of mountnman shows us how to cook squirrel. He says that often people end up with a squirrel dish that is far too tough and chewy. He’s done a perfect job dressing the squirrels. They look like rabbit that you’d see at a butcher’s.
Strangely he didn’t add any onions, garlic, sauces or spices. But I think his aim, anyway, is to show the basic method for stewing the squirrel.
Here’s a ’50s style squirrel stew recipe from the Missouri state government’s Department of Conservation, complete with floured squirrel and cream of mushroom soup:
A recipe from the same folks for Squirrel Country Sausage:
Country101living brines and then deep fries his squirrel:
I’d come across this interesting article on the tradition of eating squirrel meat in the US. Apparently, as recently as the 1940s, eating squirrel was very widespread and common. Judging from the many YouTube videos on hunting squirrel for food and cooking squirrel, squirrel eating either never left or has had a renaissance.
From the article:
“The first edition of The Joy of Cooking, published in 1931, was heavy on the squirrel.”
” On Shaw’s book tour this autumn, he was pleasantly surprised to find that squirrel eating was still alive and well in the South. And squirrel was not the only rodent either to persist as a regional delicacy. In Delaware and Maryland, people wanted to talk muskrat, so much so that he thought he was being set up, until he read that it was for sale at local markets.”
Article notes that eating the squirrel’s brain, which is a delicacy in some places, is a no-no in terms of health.
Here are a series of videos from WoodlandTV in the UK on eating, dressing and butchering squirrel (so it is graphic).
Apparently grey squirrels are non-native to the UK, having been imported from America and have decimated the native red squirrels. Was interesting – the guy who made the video is attempting to only eat wild-sourced meat, which means he says he eats a lot of vegetarian meals since he isn’t out hunting every day and he also is focused on eating ethically.:
Country101living uses an air compressor to separate the squirrel’s hide from its flesh:
Here’s another skinning technique from Nevis Walker:
How to Clean, Dress, and Filet Fish…and the tools and utensils needed:
This last part is just the credits.
Wendy Parker of Heritage Farms Northwest in Dallas, Oregon talks about pasture farming heritage hogs (red wattle hogs and American guinea hogs).
A couple in Queensland, Australia talk about keeping guinea pigs for meat. They decided on guinea pigs because they had limited space and keeping rabbits in Queensland is illegal. They eat the males and keep one male and females for breeding (they have about 20 guinea pigs). They have plans to set up an aquaponics system that would incorporate droppings from their guinea pigs.
Here are details on raising guinea pigs for food, how to set up a herd and living spaces for the pigs, how to sex and breed them, etc. from Lisa F.
The newsurvivalist gives a detailed walk-through of his urban rabbit raising set-up (he houses his Florida white rabbits in his one-car garage). Newsurvivalist recommends Bob Bennett‘s books on rabbit raising and has based a lot of his rabbit raising operation on these books. “Don’t say you can’t grow your own livestock because you live in a city, because I have proven it here. I live in a city,” he says.
Watch for the water distribution system he has set up for his rabbits. It’s really interesting.
Note that the last two videos are about slaughtering, skinning and butchering the rabbits and show these processes.
Detailed instructions on best practices in raising chickens from chicks on up. This video was created for the JustFoodNow initiative in Western Massachusetts which was created to share information about sustainable food in that area.
Tamar Haspel gives a really good walk through of the considerations to make in planning to keep chickens.
Backyard Chickens, Internet Pilot Episode from Sky Sabin on Vimeo.
A look at an oyster farm on Cape Cod (in East Dennis, Massachusetts). The farmers talk about their setup, setbacks and the benefits of oyster farming.
East Dennis Oyster Farm from Sky Sabin on Vimeo.
The Real Know How 