When I was coming up on the family farm in Bindweed County,
Indiana, Thanksgiving would be an occasion for hunting. My father, and on occasion, with my uncles would go out into the fields and see if they could get a rabbit. Usually they did.
This
was before deer and other larger game had worked their way that far
south. On other occasions my father would pick up his ancient 12 gauge
shotgun and announce that he was going to go out and 'scare up a
rabbit'. He almost
always did. The rabbits took shelter and foraged in
the rows of corn that had been picked in the previous fall. The old
man could pick off a running rabbit with a .22 but the shotgun meant
business. A rabbit wouldn't run until you were right on top of him.
Then the rabbit would leap into the air and run at
amazing speed, twisting and bobbing in and out of the rows of tangled
cornstalks. Their mottled gray sides and white tails blending in with
the skiff of snow that is always present in Norhern Indiana winters.
Blam!
And it was all over. The rabbit would tumble head over feet. The old
man would walk to the house carrying one or two rabbits in his game
pouch. He would nail their feet to the side of the woodshed and skin
and gut them.
My mother whose limited culinary
skills were hampered by a primitive wood fueled cook stove would cut
them up, roll them in flour and fry them in lard. Sometimes the blast
from the shotgun would shatter the bones of the game and there would be
sharp pieces of bone sticking up. At times I would have to pick pieces
of shot out of the meat. Amazingly, there are members of my family who
have lived up into their 90's.
We never had turkey. Our Thanksgiving dinner was fried rabbit. Also it was our dinner almost every night for a couple of winters.
It
wasn't that we went hungry but neither did we feast. We were grateful
for what we had and our carbon footprint was small. But the thought of
fried rabbit (or any other kind) to this day is repugnant to me.
I am thankful today for the Federal school hot lunch program.
