Upcoming Muskrat Dinners: Must Get A Photo!

Posted on 10 January 2008 under Michigan Cuisine, Michigan History, Special Events | 5 Comments

Why is it I can’t find a decent photo of a plated meal from one of these Muskrat Dinners?

Excuse me? Why the face?? You didn’t know we have Muskrat Dinners around these parts? For shame!!

Ok … well … neither did I …

When I moved to Monroe County in 2004 I had no idea what I was getting into food-wise. I didn’t know I’d be hanging out with chefs, designing web sites and menus for restaurants, or writing this blog.

I certainly had no clue I’d actually be planning to attend a dinner specifically to eat muskrat.

Or beaver.

Yes, there’s beaver available at one of these dinners as well. I’m not kidding.

In their book Celebrating 300 Years of Detroit Cooking, 1701 to 2001, the Detroit Historical Society included Native American recipes for Baked Beaver, Beaver Tail Soup, and Muskrat Fiddle Head Stew. In the chapter on the French occupants of Michigan from 1701 - 1800, apparently these folks were eating muskrat that was either roasted or fried as there are recipes for both. Later sections of the book leave out this game dish altogether.

Public Muskrat Dinners were apparently quite popular around here as early as 1902. The Monroe County Library System has an article online about one of the earlier dinners, from the Monroe Democrat January 5, 1906 edition:

All the catering privileges were let to George J. Wahl, manager of Wahl House. From parboiling the rats to serving them at the table, he handled all the arrangements, and the bar privileges were also his. Considering the number of muskrats served, they were remarkable good and no fault could be found with them. He brought seven professional waiters to supervise the serving, while thirteen volunteers from the yacht club assisted. The rats were stewed in sweet corn; mashed potatoes and butter, slaw, celery, bread and coffee being served with them. There was no limit to the number of helpings and on Tuesday morning we ran across an individual who confessed he had eaten five rats, but had eaten nothing since. In the annex Mr. Wahl had ten expert bar tenders from Detroit and Toledo, who specialty was “muskrat cocktails” at 20 cents per drink. Only one brand of beer was called for, that of the Koppitz-Melchers Brewing Co. of Detroit, who had prepared a special brew for the event and designed a suitable muskrat label for the bottle.

Over on MonroeTalks in the thread titled, “You Going?“, LunaPierCook reader erfire (aka, our neighbor Cyndi) wrote:

Let’s see…hmmm…the name ends with rat. 
It is caught in ditches in Monroe County.
You have to smother it in creamed corn to cook the gamey taste out of it.

Nah…I’ll pass.

You were thinking the same thing when you read the paragraph from the 1906 article, weren’t you? Right where it said, “From parboiling the rats (yeah, that word) to serving them at the table …”, right??

C’mon, fess up. You were thinking it. Cyndi only qualified the thought for you.

Muskrat is still here, still available. And some of the public dinners are coming up.

Over on his blog Expatriate Monroe, Mike Ingels talks about one of the reasons why Muskrat Dinners are still possible, specifically for Catholics:

… Catholics couldn’t eat meat on Fridays … But the locals were creative … since a muskrat swims, it should be considered a fish … the local bishop agreed … and the muskrat dinner was born.

Last March the Catholic News Service provided clarification of the history surrounding the eating of muskrat:

The custom of eating muskrat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays in Lent apparently goes back to the early 1800s, the time of Father Gabriel Richard … Legend has it that because trappers and their families were going hungry not eating flesh during Lent, he allowed them to eat muskrat, with the reasoning that the mammal lives in the water … The late Bishop Kenneth Povish of Lansing wrote in a 1987 column in The Michigan Catholic, Detroit archdiocesan newspaper, that “no (formal) dispensation was ever given to allow Catholics to eat muskrat on Fridays.” … He referred to what he called the “Great Interdiocesan Doctrinal Debate” of 1956, during which he determined that although muskrat is a warm-blooded mammal and technically flesh, the custom had been so long held along Michigan’s rivers and marshes that it was “immemorial custom,” thus allowed under church law.

Included in that article are photos of Chef Johnny Kolakowsi of the Kola’s Food Factory in Riverview, holding the muskrat dinner he serves. The Michigan Catholic has posted other photos of Chef Johnny and this same dish. Unfortunately, the dish could have been photographed better.

No, I’m not Catholic. Mary was raised Catholic but isn’t now. Still, curiosity can be a curious thing.

Articles on the subect date back over 100 years. And I can’t find a really good photo of a Muskrat Dinner.

Sure, there are these 2005 photos of the cleaning of muskrats for that year’s dinner at the Monroe Boat Club. Not being for the faint of heart, those particular photos aren’t at all helpful.

So, I have to do this myself. You’ll find Mary and I at one of the following Muskrat Dinners, trying to scrounge some grub along with decent photos. Many thanks the Monroe News Staffer Paula Wethington for this schedule.

January 12, 2008 - Rock of Gibraltar VFW Post 4230, 4 - 6 p.m.
I love how they snuck in, “There will also be spaghetti available”

January 19, 2008 - Monroe Rod & Gun Club, 5 p.m.
Muskrat and Beaver and Swiss Steak, oh my!

January 25, 2008 - Erie VFW Post 3295, 6 p.m.
Mary will just have the turtle soup, thanks!

The Great Lakes Dining Table Finds A New Home

Posted on 25 December 2007 under Michigan Cuisine, Michigan History | 4 Comments


The Great Lakes Dining Table in it’s new home near Lake Erie.

Mary and I have been concerned about the future of this table since it was first shown to us back in early November. We weren’t even yard-saling the day we came across this piece. We were actually stopped in the middle of the road talking to a friend of ours standing next to the van when I realized there was a yard sale going on next door. Honestly, I’d gotten bored with the conversation about city business and needed something to do, so I parked the van where they could continue their conversation and headed for the tables of cool stuff. Once I started looking at the yard sale around the house, the lady of the house learned of my affinity for cooking and my interest in the great lakes. I’d already scrounged through some boxes and picked up a couple cookbooks on the subject of cooking on boats. She’d then gone into the house, come back out and given me her copy of the Royal Carribbean cookbook, given to her by a friend. She didn’t need it any longer and thought I could use it more.

That’s when she took me into the house and showed us this incredible dining table and its eight chairs.

This is no ordinary dining room table. The woman’s husband was Chief Engineer aboard the Merchant Vessel Henry Ford II, and had been Chief Engineer aboard other vessels on the Great Lakes as well. When the Ford was decommissioned in 1993, as is customary the Chief Engineer was told to take anything he’d like, within reason. His was an odd request: The hatch cover battens. This table was made from those battens, along with some steel pieces from the ship, and is inscribed as such on the underside.

The table itself is a full 80″ long. The Chief Engineer’s widow has the house for sale, and is on her way to a smaller home in Florida. Her kids are also grown and gone, and none of them either want or have the room for a table of this size. I was able to find a private buyer for this table, an older couple, dear friends of ours who’ve known Mary since her high school days. This man is a former Marine who’s also spent many years working on and around the Great Lakes. During conversations with the Chief Engineer’s widow, he found out the Chief had been aboard a vessel that had run into a barge he himself was working on back some 40 years ago. Not only that, during a single storm on Lake Michigan during the same time period, both women had been stranded out on the lake for a couple days on different car ferries until that particular storm had passed. Sharing similar histories, a friendship has been formed between these people who’ve lived 1.5 miles apart and not known each other until the fate of this table brought them together.

As can be seen below, the table has spent its previous 14 years within a few hundred feet of Lake Erie. It’s now been moved to the other end of town to the room shown in the first photo above in the dining room in an active home, a beautiful house 150 years old. Sunday dinners are the norm in this home and always have been, dinners Mary and I have open invitations to. These dinners will now happen at this table. I’ve felt this table belongs in the museum in Dearborn, but to see it move from one Great Lakes family to another is even more satisfying.

At least now, Mary and I have the opportunity to keep an eye on this wonderful piece. We hope to ensure the Great Lakes Dining Table has a future, and that it always ends up in a good home.