Enablers

Now this is what I call organic cooking.

A story in the Sun Journal here talks about what great food raccoon meat is and that a single animal will feed a family of four.

He rolls into the parking lot of Leon’s Thriftway in an old maroon Impala with a trunk full of frozen meat.

Raccoon – the other dark meat.

In five minutes, Montrose, Mo., trapper Larry Brownsberger is sold out in the lot at 39th Street and Kensington Avenue. Word has gotten around about how clean his frozen coon carcasses are. How nicely they’re tucked up in their brown butcher paper. How they almost look like a trussed turkey … or something.

His loyal customers beam as they leave, thinking about the meal they’ll soon be eating. That is, as soon as the meat is thawed. Then brined. Soaked overnight. Parboiled for two hours. Slow-roasted or smoked or barbecued to perfection.

Raccoon, which made the first edition of “The Joy of Cooking” in 1931, is labor-intensive but well worth the time, aficionados say.

Raccoons go for $3 to $7 – each, not per pound – and will feed about five adults. Four, if they’re really hungry. Those who dine on coon meat sound the same refrain: It’s good eatin’.