A Wyoming groundhog could make a fine meal, in observance of Groundhog Day this week, if you slow-cooked it in a smoker with a nice pork rub, a Wyoming barbeque chef said.
The question of whether groundhogs are edible came up after fellow Cowboy State Daily reporter Clair McFarland and I filed a report from the site of the Lander Lil prairie dog statue at dawn on Groundhog Day.
And the matter of dining on groundhog isn’t hypothetical for me. I’ve done it.
But more on that later.
Phil Sees His Shadow
“Groundhog” is one of the colloquial terms for the largish burrowing rodents, formally known as marmots.
Back East, they’re called woodchucks. Here out West, they’re known as rock chucks, and some also call them whistle pigs.
The star of Groundhog Day, Feb. 2, is Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog who lives in Pennsylvania.
Legend has it that if Phil sees his shadow when he emerges from his den at sunrise that day, there will be six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow, there will be an early spring.
This year, Phil saw his shadow, predicting a long winter. Although some Wyomingites might argue, winter has yet to really begin here.
‘Lots Of Ketchup’
People in areas of the country hit hard by winter might be tempted to make a meal out of Phil, given his forecast this year.
So, I called Ric Schuyler, owner of the renowned Pokey's BBQ in Gillette, who has cooked all manner of critters, to ask him the best way to prepare groundhog.
He informed me that he’s yet to cook a groundhog.
And at first, he wasn’t too keen on the idea “because they’re too fancy, they wear top hats.”
He was referencing the fact that the men who lift Punxsutawney Phil into the sunlight on Groundhog Day wear top hats, and sometimes they put one on Phil too.
“I’ve eaten raccoons, and they were OK. I don’t know what the difference would be in eating a groundhog,” Schuyler said, as he started to warm up to the idea.
Finally, he said that just about the best way to cook anything is with a wood-fired smoker, so that’s the approach he’d take.
“I’ll smoke anything once, twice if I like it,” he said.
“So, if I was going to eat one of those damn things (a groundhog) I would smoke it, and use lots of ketchup,” he said.
He added that he hasn’t cooked many rodents, so he’s not sure if there’s a special trick to getting the best taste out of those species.
“We tried cooking a muskrat once, and that’s kind of a rodent. It stunk to high heaven, we didn’t eat much of it,” he said.
Smoking Is The Way To Go
Some people like to cook wild meats “hot and fast,” Schuyler said.
But he prefers a different approach to get meat that’s fall-off-the-bone tender.
“I’m more a low-and-slow kind of guy,” he said.
And a wood-fired smoker is the best way to get slow-cooked perfection from potentially tough and stringy animals like groundhogs, he said.
“Meat has a temperature threshold to it,” usually around 160 degrees, he said.
As it builds to that temperature, the meat “will start to sweat. It’s opening up and taking in the smoke,” he said.
“All of the sudden, it will stall out (at about 160 degrees) and that’s when the connective tissue starts to break down,” he said.
Smoking is the best method for holding meat in the stall for a prolonged period.
“The longer you can keep meat in that stall, the more it breaks down all of the connective tissue” and the more tender the end product will be, Schuyler said.
After the stall, meat will start heating up again, and it will “close and shrink” sealing in flavors, he said.
It’s also best to eat wild animals when they’re at their fattest, he said.
So, that raises the question “would a fall groundhog or a spring groundhog be better?” he said.
On one hand, a fall groundhog will have fat built up after feasting all summer.
On the other hand, a groundhog later in the spring might also be fat and juicy, he added.
“Maybe late spring? Maybe give the groundhog 30 to 60 days to put weight back on after winter,” Schuyler said.
I Ate A Rock Chuck
That brings me to my tale, which involved eating a groundhog, or rock chuck, in the middle of summer.
It was back when I was a teenager, on a backpacking trip in a Montana mountain wilderness area with my dad and a friend.
We were camped on the edge of a lush alpine meadow, and there were chubby rock chucks all over the place.
I asked my dad if I could shoot one with my .22 rifle.
“You can’t just kill it for fun. If you shoot it, we’re going to eat it,” he replied.
Looking back, he probably figured that would have deterred me.
But to my teenage mind, it seemed like a fair proposition.
And so, after a short stalk, I dropped one of the chucks with a headshot.
We skinned it, stuck it on a spit and slow-roasted it over the campfire. Dad occasionally slathered it with some barbeque sauce he’d packed in.
As I recall, it wasn’t half bad and tasted vaguely like chicken.
When I related my story to Schuyler, he thought it was hysterical. But he noted that our cooking method was a good choice.
“Cooking it over a campfire, that’s pretty much like smoking it,” he said.
He extended me an invitation to bring him a fresh groundhog the next time I’m in the Gillette area, so we can run it through his smoker and taste test the results.
I think I’ll take him up on that.
Mark Heinz can be reached at Mark@CowboyStateDaily.com
