Huckabee appeals to South Carolina’s squirrel-eating constituency

January 18, 2008

My friend dnA emails this morning, “Don’t tell me you’re not going to comment on Squirrel-Gate!” Well, if the story has earned a “-gate” suffix, I suppose I can’t very well let it go unmentioned.

Mike Huckabee is very competitive in South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary, and for the better part of the week, he’s tried to shore up support by appealing to cultural touchstones. After all, he’s a southerner, and this is the first major southern contest on the primary calendar. It led him yesterday, for example, to use some rather colorful language to defend South Carolina’s use of the Confederate battle flag.

But on MSNBC, Huckabee sought to connect with South Carolinians by emphasizing regional cuisine.

For those of you who can’t watch clips online, the video shows Huckabee explaining, “South Carolina’s a great place for me. I mean, I know how to eat grits and speak the language. We even know how to talk about eating fried squirrel and stuff like that, so we’re on the same wavelength. Mika, I bet you never did this. When I was in college, we used to take a popcorn popper, because that was the only thing they would let us use in the dorm, and we would fry squirrels in a popcorn popper in the dorm room.”

Rush Limbaugh, who’s made no effort to hide his disdain for Huckabee, used the comments for additional mockery.

“I got a note. My North Carolina mistress is upset with me, can’t tell you why, because I never know why. I just know she’s upset. This is a very snarky e-mail: ‘What’s the difference between frying squirrel in a popcorn popper and killing a mouse in a garbage can while spraying Pam on it like you did?’ Very simple. I didn’t eat the mouse.”

I don’t want to appear culturally insensitive. How Limbaugh kills a mouse in his home is pretty much his business. But he used a Pam on a mouse? What?

As for Huckabee, I’ll let a TPM reader have the final word: “So it’s ok to slather a squirrel in oil and fry it on a popcorn popper, but not to marry and have sex with it? That hardly seems fair.”

What goes unnoticed in Gov. Huckabee’s little soliloquy: “I mean, I know how to eat grits…” What is the controversy there? Is there some grand War between the States about whether one eats one’s grits with a fork, spoon, or from the blade of one’s Bowie knife? Is he subtly implying that people from states other than SC or AR wouldn’t know the difference between cheese grits and Cream of Wheat? Why wasn’t he preaching the gospel of hominy grits in corn-centric IA? How can he be expected to lead a WHOLE NATION? Or, would that have been too religious?

Oh, the humanity! When, oh when will the MSM give us the REAL answers?!

  • I hope he cut the thing up in small bits and fried those, because the way he says it sounds like he tossed the whole thing, fur and all, into a popcorn popper full of hot oil.

    I bet it was against dorm rules either way. If you’re told you can only have a popcorn popper in your room I assume that the University meant it for popcorn.

  • One should note that something akin to mad cow can be contracted by eating squirrel brains.

    This of course could explain quite a few things about Mr. Squirrel Eater.

  • Oh My God!

    That sounds nasty, like eating a pigeon or a rat.

    Granted, squirrels are cute, but they’re cute when they’re running around on a park lawn, free and unimpeded. They’re not cute for dinner.

    I guess the infected ticks on the squirrels, or the power lines the squirrels had been eating (or whatever other garbage they had been munching on) explains Huckabee’s brain.

  • A lot of people eat squirrel meat. The kind of popcorn popper he’s talking about is more like a pan that heats grease and is perfectly fine for frying food. So no squirrel-gate here. More like Pam-gate.

  • Your telling me Rush didn’t eat that squrrel? I’ve seen that fat ass, I bet he deep fried it in chocolate.

  • Re #4,

    Oh, right, blame the poor squirrels. Of course it’s not from eating beef 😉

    Or maybe the Cattlemen’s Association has a lot more pull with the Kentucky Health Department than the ‘Varmints Hunters’ Association’.

  • i’ll admit, I have eaten nutria in Sunset, La. (which claims to be the ‘Sweet Potato Capitol of the World’ or something like that), and it was not good.

  • “Or maybe the Cattlemen’s Association has a lot more pull with the Kentucky Health Department than the ‘Varmints Hunters’ Association’.”

    We should ask Mitt–he is licensed to hunt varmints, no?

  • I’m guessing Rush sprayed Pam on the mouse before he lit it on fire. I just don’t see how you could spray enough Pam on a mouse to kill it by drowning. To be honest, if that’s correct, I’m more disgusted by burning a mouse to death than I am frying (and eating) a squirrel. Having said that, I’ve never had squirrel and don’t expect to ever try it.

  • I’m not so concerned about Huckabee’s judgment in eating a squirrel as I am concerned about his judgment in thinking that admitting squirrel-eating will earn him more votes than it will lose him…

  • had squirrel once after a friend shot one out hunting. had to keep repressing the notion that it is just a big rat with a nicer tail. gamey, greasy – nothing i plan to eat again, even if Huck personally fried one up for me in his popper. this is why i live Up North.

  • Due to the prevalence of eating squirrel brains, we can give South Carolina a new nick name – the Creutzfeldt-Jakob State. Mmmm, spongey!
    And it does explain how many Republicans get elected.

  • Re #17,

    Huckabee has to win NOW, which means he has to win South Carolina.

    These guys think they have forever to change their image even after they have self-destructed.

  • There is some concern that eating fried squirrel brains can result in a mad-cow-like disease. Eating animal brains just isn’t a good thing — imho.

  • In East Texas, where I grew up, squirrel hunting was the single most popular game animal to hunt. The start of squirrel season in October was a big event. Nearly everyone you knew liked to hunt them. They’re tough and gamey animals, and not all that great tasting, but the traditional recipe in east Texas is to fry them and make squirrel gravy. Other parts of the US prefer to stick ’em in stews and stuff, but Arkansas is pretty similar to east Texas in cuisine and culture.

    Squirrel hunting these days isn’t nearly as popular as it was when I was a kid. A few tens of thousands of people each year are all that bother.

  • Um … I’ve actually eaten squirrel before (and raccoon, frog legs, a few other weird things). It’s a bit chewy, but similar to pork. Not something I’d probably try again, though.

    The thing that I find strange is that Huck makes it seem like he and his buddies just went around the neighborhood catching the fuzzy-tailed tree rats and fryin’ ’em up.

    Not sure if that’s the best idea — perhaps it was back then, but all the pesticides and poisons they ingest now a days without dying would make eating one a bad idea.

    But I’m from Missouri, so we’re, like, only half Southern (being a border state and all). So YMMV …

    🙂

  • “I know how to eat grits.” Thank God. You know, last year more then 3,000 Americans lost their lives in grit-eating accidents. And thousands more were injured. Don’t become a statistic. Learn how to eat grits the right way. Before it’s too late. Here’s how:

    1] Using a fork or spoon, scoop up a modest portion of grits [usually no bigger than a Barbie head].

    2] Bending your arm at the elbow, begin to move the grit-loaded fork or spoon toward your mouth.

    3] Open your mouth. [WARNING: It is important to open your mouth BEFORE the grit-loaded fork or spoon gets there. If you are unsure about this part of the procedure, simply reverse steps 2 and 3 by opening your mouth before bending your elbow.]

    4] If possible, place the grit-loaded portion of the fork or spoon inside your mouth. DO NOT PLACE ENTIRE FORK OR SPOON IN MOUTH UNLESS DIRECTED BY A PHYSICIAN.

    5] Close your mouth.

    6] Remove the fork or spoon from your mouth, allowing the lip area of your mouth remove the grits from the fork or spoon.

    7] Relax arm and let it fall to your side.

    8] Chew grits for five minutes using your jaw and teeth.

    9] Swallow carefully.

    10] Repeat.

    If you have any questions regarding the safe eating of grits, or suspect a loved one may be endangering themselves by eating grits in an unsafe, possibly lethal way, call the Coalition for Grit Survival at 1-800-EAT-GRIT or visit our website at: http://www.icaneatgrits.org.

    A message from the Ad Council.

  • Y’all got the state flag reference, right? “Squirrel eatin” plays on the same note for some Southerns –he’s one of us, not some damned Yankee. That identification will get him some votes, particularly in more rural areas of the south.

  • North Carolina mistress =

    some fat teenager Rush picked up in a mall

    or

    some platonic friend he’s pretending is a girlfriend.

  • Chrenson, I think he might mean Southerners put butter or jelly or salt, and so on, on grits, but Northerners might not know to do that, and therefore look silly in a diner, or un-necessarily slam grits when they haven’t tried them the right way.

  • Swan,

    Seriously? I think it’s about the danger of miss-eaten grits. I know a guy who knows a guy who died tragically in a tragic grit-eating incident. What’s spooky is that he was eating Bayou Grits with a Squirrel Chutney Sauce from Paula Dean’s cookbook “Death-defying Dishes.” And you and I both know that squirrel chutney never hurt anybody.

    Plus, don’t forget the reports from two weeks ago where Huckabee almost died eating a bowl of New England Clam Chowder. He used too many soda crackers which threw off his pH and sent him into a coma. So, I think Huck was just reassuring us that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen again. He knows the campaign cafeteria is a dangerous place. But rest assured, he can eat his grits safely.

    Also, I was totally kidding.

  • I’m a lifelong Texan, and if there’s some secret to eating grits, I sure haven’t discovered it. They taste horrible and their texture is worse. It’s one of the few dishes I just flat won’t eat.

  • SC residents should feel insulted by Hukabee to allude to them as eaters of road kill and too stupid to understand politics. Fuck Huk, He Sucks.

  • Hey bjobotts-
    I think that bit about SC residents eating roadkill is a cheap shot. For all we know, thay buy their squirrel in the meat freezer at the Piggly-Wiggly, which gets it from USDA inspected squirrel ranches.

  • Finally, a badge to prove my Southern cred: JTK has eaten squirrel… twice! The first time, it was tolerable. The 2nd, nasty as “all git out” and eaten only to justify the fact that I’d shot it myself. T’was the beginning and the end of this yokel’s huntin’ career!

    Saaaaaaloooot!

  • Squirrel greasy? That’s a problem with the cook, not the meat. If you don’t like greasy, you would be wise to avoid groundhog, possum, and especially raccoon.

    Squirrel, properly cleaned and well-prepared, is better than rabbit, which is saying a bit.

    In my third year of college, I counted myself lucky to get squirrel. It made a nice change from peanut butter.

    There are plenty of sound reasons for not thinking Huckabee would make a good President — his remarks on the Constitution, for one — his taste for squirrel isn’t one.

  • I’ll bet the White House chef is even now casting about for a reliable supplier of presidential-quality squirrels. Not.

    The only think in the whole article funnier than The Great Huckabee College Squirrel Banquet was Rush’s reference to his “North Carolina Mistress”. Is that what he’s calling his right hand now? Hey, Rush, if you’re going delusional, go all the way; call her your Eager To Please Parisian Concubine.

  • The problem for Southerners like Huckabee is every time they get all proud of being a dumb fricking hillbilly, they become the butt of the jokes for the rest of us.

  • If you really want to know the truth about Huckleberry, go rent “A Face In The Crowd” from Netflix. Andy Griffith back when he was an actor, and the truth of Southern Rube-ism revealed..

  • I live moved to Idaho about 11 years ago. Here they actually hunt local game as well. They eat elk, deer, bear, pheasant, duck, goose, and rocky mountain oysters. Makes me sick! But every region has it’s own “cuisine.”

  • I usually lurk here, but I had to pop in and say I’m nominating this post for “Best Blog Headline Thus Far of the 2008 Campaign Season.” There must be somebody who gives awards for that, right?

    Also, note to chrenson: It’s against my doctor’s orders to laugh so hard before noon ET on weekends. What’s your address, so I can send you the bill for my visit to the emergency room?

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