First Lady Grace Coolidge had dinner at 1926. Library of Congress/
1926165438+1October, a woman from Mississippi gave President John Calvin Coolidge a Thanksgiving raccoon. However, today's story is not that Coolidge ate raccoons for dinner, but that he refused to eat raccoons.
Raccoon meat is a staple food with a long history in the United States, from slave food to new york market, and then to recipes all over the country. The creatures that once maintained the whole area have disappeared from most modern dining tables, but not all of them have disappeared. However, not every small animal can be as lucky as the raccoon that Coolidge forgave.
Hunter John john wilson.
There is little literature about the diet of Native Americans, but it is obvious that the custom of eating raccoons originated from them and later spread to enslaved Africans all over South America. Throughout South America, enslaved Africans incorporated raccoons into their daily diets to supplement the meager food provided by plantations.
Slaved Africans used their ancestors' trap techniques to resist the hunger of slave plantations in the southern United States under harsh conditions.
Slave owners approved the "hunting" behavior of slaves in plantations, but did not allow slaves to hunt during the day. Therefore, slaves were allowed to hunt in the middle of the night in order to get some protein from raccoon meat after finishing their work every day. Raccoon meat combines African and Native American cooking methods. Archaeological evidence from slave plantations between Florida and Virginia shows that the whole raccoon is usually stewed, which is an echo of cooking memories in West Africa and echoes in the eastern coastal areas.
Over time, this "eating habit" from plantation slaves spread to white Americans.
In the late 1800 s, the tradition of eating raccoons saturated the food environment in the United States, because the western settlements throughout the Appalachian Mountains welcomed newly liberated African-Americans to the north. Twitty said, "If you are a poor white man, it means that you live with an African or an aborigine." "Besides, if they make raccoons at dinner, that's what everyone is eating."
Before rabies and suburbanization, raccoons had less negative associations and appeared on American dinner tables in one way or another.
Dr Megan Elias, a historian and gourmet at Boston University, wrote that small animals such as raccoons and squirrels feed many families on the border and increase the fur trade income of local residents. Cooking historian Sarah Was *** erg Johnson wrote that eating raccoons (annoying animals that easily destroy vegetable fields) can also keep crop yields stable. "(food chain balance)
After becoming a necessity, raccoons spent a wonderful day in the sunshine of the American middle class. Its sales in the market have been climbing all the way. Restaurant menus from Maine to Louisville, and recipes from Colorado to Vermont are all entered. Hunting has even become the most popular social activity for "hunting dog" breeders at night. They will chase animals to the treetops and shoot them.
The joy of cooking
However, with the rapid development of mechanized agriculture in the1900s, Americans reconsidered their preference for meat. City dwellers give up hunting games full of negative racial and class brands, such as raccoons, and choose cheap pork, chicken and beef instead. "This is a fact. Without these measures, many poor white people will not survive. African Americans have basically given up small animals. Raccoons joined the banjo when black Americans moved from the countryside to the cities.
However, raccoons have gained support in vulnerable areas throughout the United States, and hundreds of people in the United States continue to eat raccoons. At the same time, raccoon hunting itself is a symbol of American rural life, and the breeding of hounds continues the tradition of hunting raccoons at night in southern Appalachia. The word-of-mouth raccoon meat market covers the whole midwest. As a by-product of hunting, cold weather means more lush fur. "The best secret," an 86-year-old Missouri man told the Kansas City Star in 2009 on a box full of frozen raccoon corpses in the parking lot of a thrift store.
The fur traps in the whole midwest (where raccoon skin is lush) generally sell meat as a by-product, and the law is attached to a paw to distinguish it.
Rebecca, the raccoon, often escapes from her cage and leads White House assistants to chase for hours at home.
As for President Coolidge, his refusal to eat raccoons won him a family pet. 1926 during Christmas, he scratched an "annoying" hand and was about to enter a steel collar engraved with her name: Rebecca. For the rest of her term, the silent Carl lived with Coolidge and loved corn muffins. As the first lady Grace Coolidge wrote, "Playing in a bathtub full of soap cakes."
Rebecca was donated to Rock Creek Park Zoo on 1928 to spend her days among other raccoons, although the President's day cursed her with a delicate palette and intolerance for wildlife. She soon fell ill and died. Of course, the situation could be worse. She may be a turkey.
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