He might eat you before you can eat him
I was at a conference last weekend. I’m not going to tell you which one because I don’t want folks Googling the organization and ending up here (I’m sensitive like that).
But I have to tell you about the fricking highlight of the con for me, even though it probably wasn’t what the organizers hoped.
I attended this panel on Southern food & culture. I’ve written a bit about both (Pimento Cheese, please), and I thought I might find some story ideas. Typically, I avoid panels, because they can be dull. Panelists don’t really prepare to present; they just assume they can share stories and answer questions. I know–I’ve been on many. And even though I usually prepare, I find panels get off track, even if there’s a good moderator. Which there wasn’t in this case. No moderator at all.
So, the food panel was chugging along rather dully. The panelists were answering questions. They were clearly experienced and knowledgeable, but a bit awkward. After all, they’re writers not performers. I was sitting in the back of the room with my laptop, half listening, when this guy asked a question that caught my attention.
“Is it true that before you cook a possum you need to keep it alive for three days so it passes all the crap it’s eaten?”
The three foodies laughed uncomfortably. They didn’t answer. I’m willing to bet none of them have cooked a possum. They certainly haven’t caged a mad possum for three days while waiting for it to clear its bowels.
The panelists treated this like question as a joke and tried to move on, but it clearly was serious business to possum guy.
He then said, “You know, a friend of mine said he once kicked a dead horse and a live possum popped out of its rectum.”
He really said that. Which begs all kinds of questions. Like, how often do you find a dead horse lying around? And if you stumble upon a dead horse, why in the hell would you kick it? Oh look, there’s some smelly dead livestock. Let’s kick it in the stomach and see if anything ruptures.
Not to mention that even though horse rectums are largish, are they large enough to accommodate a full-grown possum? How would a possum breathe inside a horse’s intestinal track anyway?
This must be one of those urban legends, but the guy reported that it was a friend’s experience (is that one of the definitions of urban legend? A story that’s reported as something that happened to someone the teller knows?).
I’m still not sure if he really wanted to know about pre-cooking possum cleaning etiquette, or if he was just one of those, ahem, country boys who want to mess with some female writers, who might think they’re bold because they eat raw octopus but don’t have the cojones to catch, purify, skin and cook a large nasty rodent.
Anyway, more giggles and horrified silence ensued until someone else raised their hand, and the panelists jumped to answer her question like shipwreck victims swimming for a raft.
But to answer possum guy’s questions myself, no, I would not eat a possum, even after waiting three days, especially not one that’s just been forcibly ejected from a horse’s ass.
