MUSKRAT

MUSKRAT

A LOCAL DELICACY

The Wilmington Morning News on Monday March 7, 1988, reports that Wednesday is

muskrat night at the Smyrna Wagon Wheel restaurant along highway US 13 and as the evening falls,

begins to fill up with 'regulars' to take on Kitty Budd's special recipe muskrat dinner with a side

of stewed tomatoes and a side of home fried potatoes. The dish is served with a lid in order not to offend others who have not developed a taste for the Delaware dish, on the menu as 'marsh rabbit'.

Kitty is telling a novice muskrat eater, use your fingers, make yourself at home, but she need not to prompt the next table of forth generation of Smyrna people who are celebrating their

matriarch's 83^rd birthday, dig in with the gusto of that comes from years of practice.

Kitty Budd who has served diners for 48 years, 27 of them at the Wagon Wheel, has her own

method, special it may be, for preparing the local delicacy . First you need the muskrat she says,

soak it's meat in salt water, changing it three times, like over night or all day, which is supposed to draw out the wild taste. Supposed to, she says under her breath. Next the meats are parboiled with

onions and Old Bay seasoning for an hour. Other cooks, use onions, apples, turnips, whatever, in the

parboiling. Then it is 'browned' in an iron skillet, and that means an iron skillet, with onion, sage,

sale and pepper, lots of pepper. Next to having the muskrat, the iron skillet, is most important to the process.

The marsh rabbit meat is dark and stringy and falls off the bone when properly cooked, including what is called “ pottin down” , which is simmering for hours , then for sure the meet

is off the bone. Now some muskrat cooks bake the animal in a roasting pan with bacon or sausage

and lots more sage. Now some have sides of potato salad, pickled beets, and cole slaw.

Muskrat is about the cleanest meat you can eat, since it is a vegetarian and washes everything

it eats. Everyone has the best tasting muskrats it his nearest marsh or creek, just like mama cooks it

better than anyone else.

Remember to 'warsh' you hands after your done eatin muskrat.

Abstract: Monday March 7, 1988, Wilmington Morning News on March 7, Thursday,

2019 by Harrison H. for facebook & www.delmarhistory.blogspot.com