Checking back on muskrats

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

Last month in this space we looked at the novel practice some Catholics in southeast Michigan engage in - eating muskrat on Friday with church approval.

The practice is said to have started in the early 1800s when the French-Canadian trappers and their families were going hungry. So Fr. Gabriel Richard, a missionary, decided that even though the foot-long rodent is a mammal, eating it on Fridays in Lent should be allowed because muskrats live in water, like fish.

The owner of one restaurant said it tastes like duck and said it's far more popular among men than women.

Now for an update. Marylynn Hewitt, managing editor of The Michigan Catholic, newspaper of the Detroit Archdiocese, said the staff tried muskrat on March 23. "But only the women ate it - the men wouldn't touch it after seeing it really looks like a decapitated rat on a plate."

As for taste, Hewitt said, "It wasn't bad actually. Kinda like cholesterol-laden beef if you can imagine such a thing."

As far as I can tell, she wasn't Lion.