More Winter

Well, Punxsutawney Phil performed his annual duties to predict the seasonal weather trend, and he saw his shadow, which equates to six more weeks of winter (at a rather low probability of validity, by the way). Seeing his cute publicity shots got me on-line to learn more. I found one head-on shot that was particularly cute. Every hair on his (or her) body seemed to radially emanate from his nose. Had to try my hand at sketching that!

I also found that this day of celebration goes back decades, and in the early years we would feast on these cute rodents. That begs the question - recipe for groundhog? I found a couple on-line. In today's world we derive some finicky eating rules that had no credibility in a day when you lived more in tune with your environment. You needed calories and protein to go with the carbs, etc. You looked at the world around you for mammals that could fill that need. Wala! Groundhog.

Then I just happened to talk with a friend yesterday who was raised in the eastern states and he grew up on the meat that they could get from their farmland.  Groundhog was on the menu often. He says thumbs up. Good meat. It was one of many mammals and fowl that his family relied on to survive.

We have groundhog in Kansas, and we call them woodchucks. I've only seen two in the wild, so I wouldn't kill one to try the recipe. However, if I had a connection to back east and could get one, the recipe sounds good to me.