The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-09-29
EAT TONS OF MUsKRATs.

That New York city is one of the
largest consumers of muskrats as
food is not known to most patrons of
the game dealers. Chicago, which
is its only rival as eater of muskrats,
finds room for countless barrels of
Swamp rabbit" caught along the
famous marshes on Lake Michigan.
New York's muskrats come from
Chesapeake Bay, for the most part.
The trade is large one. There
are shipping points on the bay from
which 80, 900 muskrat pelts are sent
yearly to our fur dealers. The car
casses of two-thirds of these animals
are barreled and sent by steamer to
Baltimore commission merchants.
A barrel holds about 200 muskrat
carcasses. They are worth to the
shipper from SIS to $40 barrel, and
the trappers find that it pays to save
the meat. An ordinary season on an
8S-acre marsh will bring from 1000
to 1000 pelts, worth from $3.50 to
$500. If to this is added the "bring"
of from $25 to 500 for the meat, a
considerable sum is added to the
trappers' income. A thousand rats
season is small catch for a profess
sional trapper. Mert Robbins, of
Blackwater, on the eastern shore of
Maryland, averages 200 rats day
during the season on his marshes.
Ha hiroc fr0,1a fhroa - G1,a .,.es, 80
tend his snares and traps, and shoot
over his decoys. Last year he clear
ed more than $1,000. He ships
barrel of muskrats day to Baltimore
by the steamers.
The meat of the muskrat is very
dark. Its flavor is as delicate as a
rabbits. During the trapping season
muskrat flesh is on sale in all the
butcher shops along the Eastern
Shore, especially at Cambridge, Girls
field. and other water towns
The butchers buy it from the trap
pers, paying from two to four cents
a carcass. The rats are then sold to
town people at the uniform Price, four
for quarter.
The Swamp rabbits" or 'black
ducks" are served at all of the cheap
hotels and lodging houses once or
twice a week. Sometimes they are
boiled, sometimes fried, and some
times baked. Frequently the pa
irons of the houses do not know what
they are eating. A party of book
agents in Capt. Cannon's hotel at
Cambridge ate hungrily of the meat
placed before them. Cannon asked
them how they liked the Swamp
rabbit" /"
"Fine - was the answer. But
when Cannon told them what it was,
two out of the five left the table ang-
rily.
In New York, the knowing pa
irons of restaurants search down the
lists of "game in season" when seek
ing muskrats. When they come to
swamp rabbit" or "black squirrel"
or Southern rabbits" they know
what to expect. It is apt to be just
plain muskrat shipped from Balti-
more. Those who believe what they
read order the animal under its temp
ting name and eat without harm to
themselves of a savory dish.
1t would be interesting to read res
taurant lists in New York if they
were revised according to common
nomenclature. 1t would be found
that much that passes for "game" is
really humble muskrats and similar
animals served to suit the taste of
those who have never seen musk
rat on its native grass. A sportsman
who frequents the fields as well as
the club rooms occasionally finds
muskrats on the menus of special
game dinners. Many housekeeper
in New York, ordering gray squir-
rels or rabbits dressed, unwittingly
serves at her table Chesapeak Bay
muskrats.
There are, of course, many people
who know muskrats and eat them
regularly. In some of the foreign
quarters muskrats are sold for what
they are. Italians buy them in large
numbers, and the ingredients of sun
dry Chinese restaurant dishes in
clude the dark meat of the water ro-
dent disguised only by its Chinese
name.
Of the scores of barrels of musk
rats which come to New York during
the winter months, few carcasses are
wasted, and few find their way into
the omnivorous cutters of soup and
hash makers. Between the butchers
who sell dressed squirrels and rab-
bits" and the men who are familiar
with the good qualities of muskrat
meat, the supply is cared for at fair
prices. Of course, people who be-
lieve they ought to know what they
eat may object to eating muskrats,
under another name, but in the long
run, if they eat nothing worse in
their gustatory ramblings, they may
consider themselves fortunate.-New
York Times.
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