You might guess...but that 'possum made one too many trips though my yard to get to the neighbors fruit tree (satsuma? tangerine? Orange?..don't know, but the owner doesn't seem to pick them). Collected a .22 pellet from a Benjamin rifle nearly as old as I am.

Grannie's Possum


1 opossum (cleaned, skinned)
1 qt. cold water
1/8 cup salt
5 chicken bouillon cubes
2 bay leaves
3 celery stalks (chopped into 1" long pieces)
2 onions (sliced coarsely)
1 bag packaged stuffing (or see stuffing recipe below)

Clean opossum carefully...they aren't as nasty as they look (but nothing really could be). I'll tend to remove any fat layer.

Soak opossum in cold salt water for 10 hours. Rinse meat in cold water and refrigerate. Can also soak it in butter milk in place of water....or in wine, but it's a waste of wine.

Preheat over to 350-375.

Prepare stuffing according to package directions. Stuff opossum cavity with stuffing. Close cavity tightly..if youve got pure cotton string, can stitch that cavity closed. If not, can skewer it closed.

Place stuffed opossum in roasting pan; add water, bouillon cubes, bay leaves, celery, and onion. Generaly try to get water up to about 1/2 to 1/3 the height of the 'possum. Feel free to use a 1/2 and 1/2 mix of water and white wine.

After 2 hours, turn meat. Reduce heat to 300 degrees F. Cook for 1 more hour. Test roast; if not done, reduce heat and cook until done. Basic test: poke it with a knife...if it bleeds, it ain't ready...if it runs clear, it's ready.

Stuffing
2 tablespoon butter (can use bacon grease)
1 large chopped onion
about 1/4 cut of chopped celery
a little garlic, chopped finely (optional)
1/4 pound of pork sausage thinny sliced or cubed (spicy or mild, your choice)...have used ham, hot sausage, pork sausage, and even bacon...whichever you have seems to work out just fine.)
opossum liver (optional..and I hate liver, so I ignore this and feed it to the dog)
1 cup bread crumbs (I like chunky bread crumbs...and like stale french bread best of all...but if it's bread (including Cornbread) it works).
1 chopped red pepper (can use a green (we call them Bell Peppers)...or a mix of colors)
dash of Worcestershire sauce
1 hard-cooked egg (chopped fine)
pinch of salt
peper to taste
chicken stock (using 1/2 chicken stock and 1/2 white wine will work even better...but get wine fit to drink, not cooking wine) Can make chciken stock by way of bullion cubes.
Any sesoning you might like...but a pinch of rosemary is a good bet.

Melt butter in frying pan and addt he onion, celery, and garlic. When it begins to cook down, add suausge (and/or the liver if you just have to), and
cook until the onion is translucent. Add bread crumbs, a little red pepper, Worcestershire sauce, egg, salt and water to moisten. Want this to be moist, but not runny wet.

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Some people like a fruit stuffing...basically I find that disgusting, but that doesn't seem to stop them from making it.

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I've seeen it baked in clay once. Haven't tried to duplicate this myself (yet).

They dug a pit in the ground, started a big hardwood fire, and let it burn down to embers.

Beheaded and gutted the 'possum, cleaned the cavity, but left the fur and hide on. Left the feet on as well, but that was just lazyness...we don't eat possum feet.

Salt and peppered the cavity. Added a rough stuffing of crunched saltine crackers, two strips of bacon cut ito squares, and a peeled, diced apple (already mentioned I hate fruit stuffing).

Coated it in clay (looked to be a pretty thick...like 3/4"...lay of clean clay dug from a stream bank). Poked a hole in the clay about 1/4" in diameter. Laid it in the embers, covered the pit, and walked away for about 4 hours.

Dug it out...broke open the clay...the hair and skin stuck to the clay.

There's more ingrediants in there than possum? And you forgot tobasco too! Who's "granny" are you getting this from?
Bacon grease and buttermilk would be prefered here( the vet says that "I have low colesterol"). I need to be careful around fruits and vegitables.
It would seem that I have a "rather delicate system" as I age? I was advised to stay away from premium beers too. "Don't want to upset the balance you have achieved" he said.
Who am I to argue? He did spend two years at the best veternary school in Iowa?

I recall a e-mail from Martha Stewart a few years back that suggested that a possium should not be stuffed before cooked. Stuffing should be cooked seperate and put in the possum after all is done.(We served a little time together. Nice lady and good cook). I don't recall the "why" part as your method sounds better to me?

Other than that, I find your recipe to be top notch fare! It sort of makes it's own gravy.
Good thread and good recipe!

Cheezywan

Actually, she's a step-granmother...who lived to be 103 (passed in 1990). Memory like a steel trap until 101...down hill from there. Born in 1887, a young woman learning "hosewifery" around the turn of the century (the one before last) where 'possums were pretty common tablefare for central Mississippi.

Truely, time travel does exist...it's just one way.

The baked in clay trick was witnessed when I was about 12 or 13. Think my uncle (northern Alabama)was just having fun reliving his youth, there was no reason to cook it that way as he had a house and oven close at hand (but didn't have a bathroom, running water other than the well). He'd also had waht looked a lot like a small still in a locked barn...so perhaps he had been testing his brew a bit too heavily.

Didn't you forget to add "It tastes like Chicken"???? :D

Never thought of skin'n a possum but that would allow for fat reduction.
I was always told to catch the possum alive and pen him up where you feed him 'clean' food for about a month to 'flush out his system'. Been told thats an ol wives tail but we did it.
When his time was up we slit the throat and dipped him in scalding water then scrapped off hair. By the time we finished, it was a spanky white little critter there! After gutting we soaked the carcass in salt water over night, on the back porch where it was cool, 30'-40's.
The most memorable possum cook'n I ever attended was on a spit, over an open fire. It took four of us about 40 cans of beer to get the possum done. We cut slits in the skin and occassionally poked them to render out much of the fat, which caused flames that licked that critter to a true, golden brown. As I recall, he was the best possum I ever had but the beer probably had a large effect on that. I do recall some awfull good sweet potatoes wrapped around him too.

I'm like the late Jerry Clower on possum these days. I dun traded possum for a US Choice ribeye steak from a corn-fed yearlin steer!

My "granny" never did possum for me. She would cook anything I killed and cleaned though! She lived on her own til age 93. Always had a big garden. Canned and stored in the "root celler". No running water or inside comode until the mid 60's or so when the 7 kids turned a closet into a bathroom.

Back to topic: I have never had possum! I would try some if properly prepared by someone that knows how. I will reserve my judgement on the taste until that happens.
Furthermore, I have not eaten a marsupial before. Besides o'possum, I can't think of any other availible to me here in Iowa?
I recall a "roo" of some sort that was in a local newspaper a couple of decades back. It was "hanging out" with the local deer herd and doing fine. I can't remember how that sorted out?

If Ribbonstone's recipe is from his "granny", I would print it out and save it. I doubt you will find a better one?

I use tobassco on everything.

Cheezywan

It's still 'possum....which, at best, might be an aquired taste.

They can be fat little buggers...depends on what they've been eathing (and a 'possum just isn't all that picky). Can understand the urge to pen them up and purge them before eating. Believe the fat is where most of the "odd" taste rests.

BBQ or oepn spit roasting is certainly a good way to get rid of excess fat.

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The one in to soak is going to get an extra day of soaking...and I've kind of decided to cut it up roast it.

It's still 'possum....which, at best, might be an aquired taste.

I think most of that is the looks of the critter. Kinda like oysters. It is difficult for a lot of folks to get past the "ugly factor". I like oysters(tobassco is good here too).
Liver is another one(talking beef here). You ,and lots of others, don't like it. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground on some foods. You either love it or hate it. There is no "I'll eat it but, its not my favorite" kind of people out there.

"Granny's" recipe sounds like it would also be good with a beef roast substituted?

Cheezywan

I think most of that is the looks of the critter. Kinda like oysters. It is difficult for a lot of folks to get past the "ugly factor". I like oysters(tobassco is good here too).
Liver is another one(talking beef here). You ,and lots of others, don't like it. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground on some foods. You either love it or hate it. There is no "I'll eat it but, its not my favorite" kind of people out there.

"Granny's" recipe sounds like it would also be good with a beef roast substituted?

Cheezywan

Had a Texan professor that would cook armadillos...tried it, but that's a critter that looks a bit too much like a big bug. A taste I didn't aquire (although once you make chili out of nearly anything, you really can't taste what it started life as). His rattlesnake (baked in a bag with orange juice) was great.

On the other hand, given a sack of iced oysters...an oyster knife...some horseradish/lemon/tobasco/ketchup to dip them in...and an occasional cracker, I'm in hog heaven (we buy them by the burlap sack down here).

Stayed too late at work tonight to cook the 'possum....which brings me to what to do with one that can't be soaked anymore.

Have taken it out (was soaking in a 50/50 mix of water and wine), cut it into pices, and wrapped each piece in plastic wrap. Will cook it tomorrow, but will simply brown it in bacon grease, then slowly simmmer it with onions and seasonings in a chicken stock

I have "little time" for professers and "some engineers".
A "good cook" is a different matter? Some can make "dirt" taste like "steak" .

My "granny" was one of the latter. "I" suspect that yours was too?

Cheezywan