Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1905-07-13
alice SAMEE cHlNEE.

'HtSSH I'0uoTSO TTOtuinSnC FrOISS'
sionaI and Other Men Feed on
Muskrats.
What to Eat: Two thousand eight
hundred muskrats were eaten by the
1000 guests at the great muskrat feast
recently held at Monroe, Mich. States.
men, lawyers, doctors and men of all
professions were included in the list
of attendants and the relish with
which the rodents were devoured
should forever set at rest the claim
that the muskrat should not be num-
bered among the things that are good
to eat. Former Lieut.. Gov. John
Strong was present and should have
been awarded the prize for eating the
greatest number of roasted rats. He
said he never ate anything that tasted
better and it is partially at his sug.
gestion that the feast is to be repeated
at Monroe next year. All the officials
OF the town honored the occasion with
their presence and dignitaries were
there from towns and cities as far
away as Toledo, Ohio. From the lat.
ter city came Frank Wade, the bosom
friend of the late Golden Rule" Jones,
who, he says, taught him to eat musk
rats. No kind of meat was served ex-
cepting muskrat, and aside from the
eating the principal diversion consist
ed in speech-making and listening to
orations in praise of the toothsome
"ondatra zibethicus."
While the guests were principally
professional men, most of them were
more or less interested in Watching,
and it was yachtmen who devised and
successfully carried out the novel feast,
The occasion was under the auspices
of the Monroe Yacht club, which
boasts among its members some of
the most noted of Michigan's lawyers
and doctors. W. B. Sterling, commo-
dore of the club H. A. Conant, Char
les Greening and Edward Wilder con.
stituted the committee that had direct
supervision over the festivities.
Preparations for the great srat
carnival" were begun weeks in ad-
vance. Three thousand rats were ad.
vertised for, but the number obtained
lacked 200 of reaching that figure. The
feast began at 10 o'clock, but in order
to have the rats ready for the diners
1t was necessary to begin the cooking
at noon of the festive day. The pre-
paration of the rodents for food was in
charge of c. B. Southworth, a caterer
OF renown. The noted chefs Davis
and Look did the cooking. The rats
We're cooked in bread ovens. After
being treated so as to rid them of all
the musky odor from which they de-
rive their name they were placed in
small pans and then showed into the
ovens by the hundred. It was 10
o'clock at night when the last painful
OF the rats, all savory and brown, was
brought from the oven. The meat of
the rats was very dark, but the
feasters declared it was exceedingly
sweet-far superior to wild duck or
venison.
Skilled trappers caught the rats in
their haunts in the marshes of that
section of Michigan, the trappers be-
ing spurred to extraordinary efforts bv
the liberal rewards that had been Of
fered. Joe Lazette, a grizzled French
trapper, caught far more than any
other and he was made the hero of the
feast and gamekeeper of the club.
Every bit of flesh was stripped from
the last bone of the rats. 1t was near
~ daylight when the feast ended, and
no one has yet complained of the bad
after effects-that is, from eating the
rats.