Thread: Getting back to living off the land.....

We noticed there's a background taste when used in stew but the pie we made with the leftover stew was our preference, having given it some thought, I think that bleeding the possum as soon as it's shot could change the flavour, currently we're skinning and curing the pelts of the latest batch, as a test bed for curing wallaby hides....... I'd be interested to hear how the possum ham turns out

Possum meat often tastes a bit 'neutral' to me, and if I didn't know it was possum, i'd have difficulty telling you what it was. Some are tougher than others. I enjoy a bit of tender, fried possum.

I'm guessing you will have noticed the gooey scent glands at the base of the tail... and I imagine if this stuff got on the meat your food would taste distinctively possumey. I think that if a possum is not gutted fairly quickly, then there is likely to be a distinctive, 'gamey' gut taint in the meat. This may be to some folks liking, but I think it is best avoided. Possums which die in a kill trap when caught in the evening, may have significant gut taint when collected the next morning.

I cooked some possum bacon / ham this morning. I cut some thin slices from the slab, then soaked them in hot water to remove some salt. I dabbed the slices dry with a paper towel then fried them in oil. They browned nicely and went crisp. To be honest, if I didn't know what it was I could have believed it was lean supermarket bacon. It was a bit too salty still for my liking, so I will try to remedy that in the next batch. I hope I get a fatter possum next time.

How are you curing your hides.... with a store-bought kit or a home-brew recipe?