The Newest Food Craze Is … Raccoon Sausage?
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade, right? This butcher must have been thinking along those lines when life handed him a raccoon.
A German butcher named Michael Reiss is gaining some notoriety for turning something bad into some tasty (allegedly) meats.
Germany is facing a growing issue with raccoons — it is believed that there are 2 million raccoons in Germany currently, and that number is on the rise. During the raccoon hunting season of 2021 and 2022, more than 200,000 raccoons were put down, and yet the infestation continues.
Reiss is a hunter as well as a butcher, and this raccoon hunting season, he was able to cull 200 of the pests on his own. But instead of just throwing the bodies out, he took the meat and turned it into sausage.
It doesn't stop there: He also makes a soup from the bones, a liver sausage and a breakfast sausage.
As you can imagine, there was some trepidation on eating such a unique taste, but Reiss claims that customers from his store, Wildererhütte Kade, enjoy it.
So, what does it taste like?
Reiss claims that the raccoon "has a delicate taste. It’s difficult to describe but if you eat one of my regular Bratwursts and then a raccoon sausage, you’ll know the difference".
If you are looking to bring something different to Thanksgiving and have a rodent problem of your own, maybe you, too, can make some raccoon sausage this holiday season.
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Gallery Credit: Billy Dukes