just saw on another site (don't remember which one) one fella was hankerin' for squirrel gravy. I'm a down home boy, but never had that, or heard of it...
I just took a quick look. Squirrel gravy is nothing more than gravy made with the pan drippings after you've cooked the squirrel. It's no different than chicken gravy or beef gravy in that regard...the method and ingredients are the same (drippings, flour, water/milk, salt, pepper.) One of these days I gotta try it.
The owner of an RV park in North Carolina served "pot pie" once at a pitch-in dinner. After we had eaten, he asked if anyone could guess what meat it was. I guessed veal...it was tasty. Nope, it was bear meat. Poor Yogi and/or Boo-Boo..... I'd eat it again.
So, the next time you are in the Denver area, you might want to try dinner at The Fort, in the mountains west of town. I've eaten there several times, and avoided the more "exotic" items, but I can say the Buffalo was good, as was the quail. https://www.thefort.com/menus/#appetizers
We're first on the second page of Bing results on a search for "Have you ever eaten a squirrel?" So, how about it? Have you ever eaten a squirrel? What did you think about squirrels as meat? Have you ever eaten a raccoon or a rattlesnake? What did you think of it? I have eaten rattlesnake, but although I don't remember what the taste was like, I know that it didn't make me want to throw up, but neither did it result in the feeling that I wanted more of that.
Lots of squirrel eaters on page 1 of this thread. One thing I have never liked at all is venison. Yuck-o. Just a gamey, smelly meat. I also hate lamb because it stinks IMO.
I'm not too fond of lamb, either. Growing up in the UP Of Michigan, I liked venison when I had it many times, but I could hardly eat it, even to be polite when I had it in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. It's the same animal, but different feed, I guess. Unless I was starving, squirrels don't look big enough for it to be worth my while shooting, dressing, and cooking it. Besides, squirrels and raccoons are cute, and I don't want to eat things that are cute.
My parents were children of the Depression and grew up poor. They learned to get over "cute" when they were hungry. I remember my dad bringing home a "mess" of quail for supper. It took several of those little birds to make a meal. He hunted all kinds of game but loved bird hunting (wild ducks, geese, etc.) the best. That said, if I saw the live cow I wouldn't be able to eat the steak, so there's that.
Squirrel is definitely worth it. Racoon does not taste like chicken. Not sure what it tastes like, exactly. Rattlesnake is pretty tasteless by itself.
I have had venison that was taken in the mountains, and it is just as you describe. And that was after the "soak in tomato juice overnight" treatment. It's due to their "roots and acorns" diet. I would have to be real hungry to eat that again. Every time I've had venison since then, it was deer taken in agricultural areas where they have unlimited access to corn fields. That is very good meat. I suspect that most of the deer taken in Virginia is on the roots & acorns diet, since the annual harvest numbers are driven by that year's acorn crop (the more acorns there are, the fewer deer get taken.)