William Jennings on 24 Oct 2003 suggested:

> I can recall having squirrel and dumplings often at a boyhood
> friend's house when I was about 12 years old. The dogs got most the
> rabbits.
>
I have never eaten squirrel, though I have tried some other
critters. The oddest is probably monkey, which I tried in the jungles
of Veracruz. And you know, it did NOT taste like chicken.

> Btw, I stopped by the store and picked up a bag of "Chicharones"
> which is also labled "Pork Crackins" (no -g-)

I won't buy the packaged stuff, not even in Mexico. Also, in
Mexico, they sell flour-based chicharron, which doesn't taste bad, may
be healthier, and yet doesn't compare to the real chicharron.

> Yes, I remember chicharones were cooked in their own rendered fat.

As are carnitas, another wonderful Mexican food.

> You know I can't rightly recall the last time I saw a real pig.

I see them every time I go to Mexico, and at the County Fair.

> I did see a live Russian bore on the Aransas Refuge a year
> back with tusk about 6" long.

We supposedly have wild boar in the hills both to the west and
east of this valley, though I have never observed them. Mind you, I
don't hike in those areas anymore, not since the County Vector Control
posted on their website that there are rodents in those areas carrying
both Bubonic plague, and Hanta virus. Personally, I would rather face
the boar, which I can see and defend against, than the little microbes
that attack surreptitiously.

--Douglas