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Playing 'Possum
And finally as to the 'possum. It's quite as fat as the deer is dry. So best skin it, for a good deal of the fat comes off in the process, and besides, you can get four bits for the hide. In true hill-billy style boil it tender in well salted water right in the iron camp kettle, with the red hound dog who treed it looking hopefully on. Lift the boiled 'possum right into the baking pan and go get you a bundle of green sassafras twigs. Tweak off the tip ends to toothpick size and stick them an inch deep into the meat and so thickly you can tell a tenderfoot it's porcupine. Use butter and a little water in the bottom of the pan so it won't burn whilst baking. Sprinkle well with pepper and dot with butter. And if anybody crashes your camp, irresistibly attracted by the swell smell just play 'possum yourself-don't open the oven door, but allow as how you're only cooking the tarnation varmint for its fat to grease your new boots, and as soon as you get rid of the pest or pests, peek in to see if everything is baking to your taste, either light or dark brown. Boil sweet potatoes, peel, lay them around the 'possum and let them finish baking with him. Munch corn bread with the feast to bring out the full sassafras flavor, and it's lickin' good; in fact it's good enough to make you lick all ten fingers.
A camp recipe in the hill-country manner: boil first to render out fat, then bake with sassafras twigs stuck through the meat. Most of what needs translating here is the sassafras and the animal itself.
- Legality firstOpossum is regulated as game or a furbearer in many US states, with licence and season requirements; in others it is treated as unprotected or nuisance and rules vary widely. Check your state wildlife agency before anything else.
- Sassafras twigsThe flavouring here is sassafras bark and wood, which contains safrole. FDA prohibited safrole as a food additive in 1960, and sassafras bark for tea was restricted subsequently. Commercial file powder, made from the leaves, which are naturally low in safrole, is not a substitute for green twigs in this method.
- The boil is not optionalOpossum carries a heavy layer of subcutaneous fat with a strong flavour, and the initial boil in salted water is what makes the meat palatable. Skinning rather than scalding, as the text says, removes more of that fat still.
- Trichinella and other parasitesWild opossum can carry Trichinella and Toxoplasma. Boiling to tender followed by a full bake will take it well past 165F, which is what matters, but do not shorten either stage to keep the meat pink.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. For a boiled carcass being browned and finished, a moderate oven of about 350F suits; the text's 'light or dark brown' is the only doneness cue offered, since the meat is already cooked through from the kettle.
- Butter and water in the panThe text calls only for butter and 'a little water' in the bottom of the pan, enough to keep the drippings from scorching during a long bake. Opossum throws a great deal of its own fat, so expect to spoon some off before the sweet potatoes go in.
- Sweet potatoesBoil them until just yielding, no further, then peel and arrange around the meat for the last part of the bake so they glaze in the drippings rather than collapse.
- YieldA dressed opossum runs roughly 4 to 7 lb and feeds four, generously three. Cornbread is not a garnish here but part of the intended plate.