The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1905-08-04
FEED HIGH ON MI kRATs.
Hundreds OF the Animals Consumed.
at q banquet in Michigan ss
S9s=.S:s. # Town Lately. r.

Two thousand eight hundred musk
rats were eaten by 1900 guests at the
great muskrat feast recently held ct
Monroe, Mich relates What to Eat
Statesmen, lawyers, doctors and men
list of attendants and the relish with
which the rodents were devoured should
forever set arrest the claim that the
muskrat should not be numbered among
the things that are good to eat. Former
Lieut.. Gov. John Strong swas present
and should have been awarded the
prize fol. eating the greatest number Of
roasted rats He said he never ate any
thing that tasted better and 1t is par
TALLY at his suggestion that the feast
is to be repeated at Monroe next year.
All the officials of the town honored the
occasion with their presence and digni-
taries were there from towns and cities
as far away as Toledo, Ohio. From the
latter city came Frank Wade, the
bosom friend of the late Golden Rule
Jones, who, he says, taught him to eat
muskrats. No kind of meat was served
excepting muskrat, and aside from the
eating the principal diversion consisted
in speechmaking and listening to ora
lions in praise of the toothsome ''on-
datra zibethicus."
While the guests were principally pro-
tessional men, most of them were more
or less interested in yachting, and it
was yachtsmen who devised and sue
cesstully carried out the novel feast
Inc occasion was under the auspices OF
the Monroe Yacht club, which boasts
among it's members some of the most
noted of Michigan's lawyers and doc
tors. w. B. Sterling, commodore of the
club; H. A.. Conant, Charles Greening
and Edward Wilder constituted the
committee that had direct supervision
over the festivities.
Preparations for the great rat car
nlvap' were begun weeks in advance.
Three thousand rats we're advertised
for, but the number obtained lacked 200
OF reaching that figure. The feast began
at ten o'clock, but in order to have the
rats ready for the diners it was neces-
sary to begin the cooking at noon of the
festive day. The preparation of the ro-
dents for food was in charge of G. B.
Southworth, a caterer of renown. The
noted chefs Davis and Look did the
cooking. The rats were cooked in bread
ovens. After being treated so as to rid
them of all the musky odor from which
they derive their name they were
placed in small pans and then showed
into the oven by the hundred. It was
ten O'Clock at night when the last pan
full OF the rats, all savory and brown.
was brought from the oven. The meat
OF the rats was very dark, but the feast
ers declared that it was exceedingly
sweet1-far superior to. Wild duck or
venison.
Skilled trappers caught the rats in
their haunts in the marshes of that Sec
ton Of Michigan, the trappers being
spurred to extraordinary efforts by the
liberal rewards that had been orrered.
Joe%Lazette,-a grizzed French trapper,
caught far more than any other, and he
was made the hero of the feast and
game keeper Of the club. Every bit of
flesh was stripped from the last bone
OF the rats. It was nearly daylight when
the feast ended, and no one has yet COM
planned of bad after effects-that is.
from eating the rats.