One of my favorite movies is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. There’s a particularly amusing scene where a squirrel has hitchhiked into the Griswold’s kidnapped tree house that Clark has set up. The squirrel is discovered and flees, causing chaos and panic among the main characters who flee.
Amid the confusion, Clark turns to his wife’s cousin, Katherine, and asks, “Where’s Eddie? Doesn’t he eat these d?!$#% (expletive removed) things?” She replies, “Not lately, you heard they’re high in cholesterol.”
For some time I have taken that statement as truth. However, I was recently doing some research on the movie and came across this information.
According to the USDA Nutrition Database, 100 grams of “Game meat, squirrel, cooked, roasted” contains only 121 mg of cholesterol. This compares quite favorably to 1 whole cooked egg with 213 mg of cholesterol, 1 cup of raw oysters with 120 mg. and a 5 oz. can of canned boneless chicken at 88 mg. Most plant products, of course, contain little or no cholesterol.
This clearly shows that squirrel meat is no more loaded with life-stealing cholesterol than any other meat or dairy product.
How should one eat their squirrel bounty? Why, at Brunswick Stew of course.
Literary humorist Roy Blount Jr. says of the dish, “Brunswick stew is what happens when small mammals bearing ears of corn fall onto grills.”
For those of you unfamiliar with Brunswick stew, it is a traditional dish that is typically made with small game, including rabbit, pigeon, groundhog, and last but not least, squirrel.
The stew was first created and served in 1828 and was named after the Virginia county in which it was conceived. Numerous excellent recipes are on the Internet for Brunswick stew; probably not a bad one in the group.
We can assume that Cousin Eddie would wholeheartedly approve of a good Brunswick squirrel stew; especially around the holidays. If he plans to host his own holiday party, consider making a tasty pot for his guests! As Eddie would say, “That’s great, Clark!”