Armadillo or rabbit…some will never know!

BY DR. PAUL D. COREIL

tIn the mid-1970s, I was a wildlife management student at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL), fascinated by the challenge of managing Louisiana’s abundant wildlife for public enjoyment, especially hunting and fishing in our beautiful and productive Sportsman’s Paradise!

I had been an avid hunter all my life, so studying wildlife management seemed like a natural fit. My courses combined classroom instruction with plenty of hands-on field experience. We studied ecology, biology, game management and the many ways animals interact with one another and with their natural surroundings.

Field trips took us into a variety of habitats where we observed mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish in their native environments.

One particular field trip, however, stands out from all the others, not because of what we learned in a classroom, but because of what we had for supper!

A true “survival” field trip

One summer, I enrolled in an Animal Ecology course that included an overnight “survival” field trip to the woodlands and floodplains along the Sabine River in southeast Texas. This was not your typical camping trip. We were expected to provide much of our own food by harvesting or catching it from the land and water around us.

We were allowed to bring a few necessities, water, cooking supplies, cooking oil, rice, tomato sauce, flour and seasonings but the main courses had to come from nature.

Our group included wildlife and biology students, along with a couple of school teachers who were taking biology courses for a minor. Everyone was excited about the challenge. We set up our tents, organized our supplies and immediately started looking for something to put in the cooking pot.

Fishing was our first success. We headed to nearby lakes and managed to catch a couple of nice bass. That was a good start, but we quickly realized that two bass weren't going to feed the entire class.

Fortunately, as part of our educational “survival” experience, we had special permission to harvest a limited number of rabbits, squirrels or other appropriate game animals.

That's where the adventure really began.

The hunt

Our Animal Ecology professor and I headed into the woods together. Armed with only a pistol, we were hoping to find a rabbit or squirrel that could provide some additional protein for supper. We weren't having much luck.

Then, suddenly, we encountered a large armadillo.

An armadillo wasn't exactly what we had been looking for, but it was legal to harvest under the special circumstances of our field exercise, and we were hungry.

We successfully harvested the animal and brought it back to camp. There was just one problem: none of us had ever cleaned or prepared an armadillo for human consumption.

As the resident Cajun in the group, I volunteered for the job.

I figured that if Cajun cooks could turn just about anything into a good sauce piquante, an armadillo ought to be no exception!

I carefully and discretely cleaned and deboned the animal, and to my surprise, we ended up with a substantial amount of light-colored meat. The meat was white and had a texture and appearance remarkably similar to chicken.

That's when the professor and I had a little conversation.

We decided the rest of the class didn't need to know exactly what they were eating. So, for supper that evening, our armadillo became “deboned swamp rabbit.”

The cajun test

With a black cast-iron pot, plenty of Cajun seasoning, tomato sauce and a large pot of steaming white rice, I went to work.

The armadillo meat went into the sauce piquante, and before long, the aroma of Cajun cooking filled our campsite.

When supper was ready, nobody seemed suspicious.

The “rabbit” sauce piquante was served over rice, and everyone dug in.

And they loved it!

In fact, the meal was such a hit that people started going back for seconds.

Then came the moment that has stayed with me all these years.

The two school teachers were enjoying their meal when they began discussing how willing they were to eat just about anything that came from the wild.

There was, however, one exception. “I'd eat just about anything,” one of them said, “but I'd never eat armadillo!”

I nearly choked on my own supper. There they sat, enthusiastically eating a second helping of rice and gravy, with armadillo in their mouths!

The professor and I looked at each other but didn't say a word.

We had originally planned to reveal the truth after supper. But after hearing that emphatic declaration about never eating armadillo, we decided it might be better to keep the secret to ourselves.

The secret that stayed a secret

I've often wondered what would have happened if we had told them the truth. I would have hoped they would have simply laughed at the whole thing, but I honestly do not know?

What I do know is that everyone enjoyed the meal, several people had seconds, no one got sick and nobody complained about the “rabbit.”

That experience also taught me something about food and perception: sometimes people decide whether they like something before they ever taste it. Had we announced that supper was armadillo, I'm not sure anyone would have touched it.

But call it rabbit, put it in a good Cajun sauce piquante and serve it over rice, and suddenly it becomes second helping quality.

I later learned that armadillo meat has traditionally been consumed in parts of Central and South America. It has been described as light-colored, fine-grained meat with characteristics somewhat similar to pork, chicken or rabbit.

And then I learned better!

As amusing as the story is, there is an important lesson at the end.

That weekend in 1975 was the first, and definitely the last—time I ever cleaned, cooked or ate armadillo.

Years later, new research revealed the potential health risks associated with handling these animals. In rare cases, Armadillos can carry the bacterium associated with leprosy, and exposure to the raw meat can pose a health risk.

Although thorough cooking all but eliminates the risk from viable bacteria in meat, handling and skinning an infected animal can present another potential route of exposure.

Today, public health authorities generally advise that people avoid handling wild armadillos and also advise against eating them.

So, while that long-ago field trip provided one of the funniest meals I have ever prepared, it also gave me a story I will probably never forget.

I'm still amazed that we managed to turn an armadillo into a delicious Cajun sauce piquante, and even more amazed that two people who proudly declared they would “never eat armadillo” went back for seconds.

While that experience revealed how delicious armadillo can be, it is now permanently off limits, even for a “Survival” college field trip!

C’est la vie! Until next time, Paul