Yesterday a family member of mine accidentally hit a fox squirrel right down the road from our farm and called me immediately to let me know so I could collect the animal for our five dogs to eat. I wasted no time and 5 minutes later returned home with a big orange and grey fox squirrel. He was a beautiful specimen, clean, thick coat, bushy tale and quite obviously in robust health.
Well I've been thinking about shooting one for a while to satisfy my desire for high quality brain and other organs, but wasn't too motivated as I didn't really need the foods since I get top quality grass fed beef organs for $2/lb.
Anyway, I jumped on the opportunity and retained the head of this quite large animal for myself, an gave the body to the dogs to share. These creatures are surprisingly large up close as far as sciurids go, along the lines of a small rabbit.
She must have run over his head because, thought there was little visible damage to it, the skull was crushed. I easily scooped out the teaspoon's worth of brains through the hole in the back, they were scrambled but not harmed, and very clean. I also collected the eyes, something I've been wanting to try for a while, as well as the massive cheeks. So for a lunch appetizer yesterday, I thanked the squirrel and the universe for contributing to my health and ate each one of the small delicacies.
The cheeks were pretty flavorless but still quite delicious. The brain was out of this world. A little salty, a lot creamy, and just yummy, would have been glad of much more of it.
The eyes were another thing all together. I've never really eaten eyes as far as I can recall, except maybe that of shrimp. I was expecting them to be rather soft and liquidy. I could not believe how hard and fibrous they were. It took me about a minute for each eye to get them centered enough on my molars to pop them, it really was quite a task. But eventually I'd close my jaws at just the right time and instead of rolling to the side, there would be a bursting *POP* and a little bit of slightly salty liquid would emanate. The flavor was quite good and then chewing the rest of it was just like a very firm muscle.
I'm sorry that these picks are a bit gory looking, I'm really not trying to be sensational, just sharing my experience with these magical bits of nutrient dense foods. Cheers!