He didn't, but boy does it sound like something he could've done.....................
For what it's worth. Coyote and bobcat are good, better than white tail or mule deer. Axis deer is excellent and I hear fallow deer is good, too. I've never eaten pronghorn or jack rabbit. I cooked a jack one time and he stunk up the entire house. European hare and roe deer are good. Cottontail rabbit, depending on the recipe, is OK. Fox squirrels and Cat squirrels are excellent and woodcock are the absolute king of wildfowl. I've eaten possum twice. One was more tender than pork but even more greasy...very good. The second one was so foul that I've never tried another, although I think corn-fed in a rabbit hutch for a couple of months, they all might be good.Black Bear and American Bison are excellent. Coon was just OK but strong. I think you need to know exactly how to remove the scent glands on their back and legs [I don't]. Pintail and black-bellied tree ducks are excellent, especially the tree duck. Some teal are OK but some are sour. Mallards, black ducks, summer mallards and Mexican mallards are generally Ok unless they've been eating river mussels. Scaup are so-so but ringbills are very good. Interestingly, little ruddy ducks are quite good but buffleheads are poor. Sea ducks are inedible. Gadwalls along the Rio Grande are terrible as are wigeon. Redheads are OK but canvasbacks aren't as good as some people make out. Spoons, despite Ron's recipe, taste like gasoline. Coots--I fixed a bunch of them up for a fancy interns' party--taste like alfalfa gone very bad although their very large gizzards are surprisingly good.Geese--specks, canadas and snows in that order. An outfit in Maurice, Louisiana makes Turduckin with a sprig or mallard in the center, then a spec and then a domestic turkey. No bones. It's pretty good. I tried a wild turkey stuffed with Rio Grande cinnamon teal--it was terrible. I don't know if the turkey screwed up the ducks or the teal screwed up the turkey.A jake turkey is better than a domestic bird, which is also a jake or first-year hen. An old gobbler is coyote bait. Yeah, I know a million recipes to try to make them moist and edible but, whether I make it or someone else makes it, it always ends up dry, tough and tasteless. I've even tried it in gumbo cooked for four or five hours. Amazingly, it is still dry and tasteless. Ringneck pheasants are good and quail are excellent. Virginia, sora, and King rails are excellent.
For what it's worth. Coyote and bobcat are good, better than white tail or mule deer. Axis deer is excellent and I hear fallow deer is good, too. I've never eaten pronghorn or jack rabbit. I cooked a jack one time and he stunk up the entire house. European hare and roe deer are good. Cottontail rabbit, depending on the recipe, is OK. Fox squirrels and Cat squirrels are excellent and woodcock are the absolute king of wildfowl. I've eaten possum twice. One was more tender than pork but even more greasy...very good. The second one was so foul that I've never tried another, although I think corn-fed in a rabbit hutch for a couple of months, they all might be good.Black Bear and American Bison are excellent. Coon was just OK but strong. I think you need to know exactly how to remove the scent glands on their back and legs [I don't]. Pintail and black-bellied tree ducks are excellent, especially the tree duck. Some teal are OK but some are sour. Mallards, black ducks, summer mallards and Mexican mallards are generally Ok unless they've been eating river mussels. Scaup are so-so but ringbills are very good. Interestingly, little ruddy ducks are quite good but buffleheads are poor. Sea ducks are inedible. Gadwalls along the Rio Grande are terrible as are wigeon. Redheads are OK but canvasbacks aren't as good as some people make out. Spoons, despite Ron's recipe, taste like gasoline. Coots--I fixed a bunch of them up for a fancy interns' party--taste like alfalfa gone very bad although their very large gizzards are surprisingly good.Geese--specks, canadas and snows in that order. An outfit in Maurice, Louisiana makes Turduckin with a sprig or mallard in the center, then a spec and then a domestic turkey. No bones. It's pretty good. I tried a wild turkey stuffed with Rio Grande cinnamon teal--it was terrible. I don't know if the turkey screwed up the ducks or the teal screwed up the turkey.A jake turkey is better than a domestic bird, which is also a jake or first-year hen. An old gobbler is coyote bait. Yeah, I know a million recipes to try to make them moist and edible but, whether I make it or someone else makes it, it always ends up dry, tough and tasteless. I've even tried it in gumbo cooked for four or five hours. Amazingly, it is still dry and tasteless. Ringneck pheasants are good and quail are excellent. Virginia, sora, and King rails are excellent.
English sparrows: Well I have one experience. A friend and I used to pot them in the backyard. His mother, an Italian woman, told us if we didn't stop persecuting the sparrows, she'd make us eat them. Well, we couldn't help ourselves and shot 25. She caught us and made us pluck and clean them. She then cooked them into a spaghetti with sauce, much like spaghetti and meat balls. We LOVED it. Some punishment. Grouse: Not too much experience but ruffed grouse and sharptail are good if I recall, rightly. Sage grouse is tough but, in a gumbo, the flavor is passable good, but sagey. I've never tried a capercaille but think they eat pine needles so might be a little rough. Neither have I had Scottish grouse, but would like to plug a few. Grouse trips in Scotland and England are far less expensive than they used to be. Partridges: Red leg, all the francolin and Huns are all good. Doves and young wild pigeons are good if you cook them right i.e. just off of dead rare. I shot a couple of ostrich's but didn't partake of fresh steak. Ostrich biltong is good, though. Sandhills are, of course, excellent.
Fish. Red snapper is good but not as good as Pacific rockfish. Grouper is excellent as is dorado. The tunas are a bit overrated unless eaten fresh, raw and with wasabe sauce and soya. Salmon. It depends on the species and cut. I think Kings are very good but people say sea run sockeye is even better but I don't know. I think cold water halibut is the best although ling cod is very good. Pacific mackerel ain't much unless well-smoked right after taken from the water.. It makes good bait, though. Pacific bonita is a little better. Atlantic bonita [actually 'little tuny'] tastes like aluminum as does jack crevalle. Roosterfish is only fair. King Mackerel is very good as mackerel balls when served very hot. It is very good for kids because it is boneless. Tom Cod, that ubiquitous inhabitant of the pacific coast that many people throw away, is OK. Sand dabs are very good. Grunion ain't much. Calico bass and the various Pacific rock bass, are good. Sculpin [scorpion fish] are small but good but avoid the poisonous spines. Cabezon is good but has mint-green flesh. Never, never eat the row if you wish to see another day. I came very close to making that mistake off of La Jolla. The same is true of fugu [pufferfish].
Mako shark is good. Sand shark is OK but Pacific Angelshark is terrible. Blue and striped marlin are surprisingly good, much like swordfish which is excellent. Orange Roughy is truly terrific but they fished them out of New Zealand and you can't get them any more. Yellowtail and amberjack are OK. White sea bass is good. Squid is tasteless but useful as a container into which you can stuff crab, lobster, shrimp or crawfish. Pargo and cabrilla are good as are Pacific Whitefish. Pacific sheephead is good and tastes like crab. Atlantic sheepshead is an entirely different species but very good. Red fish are OK and speckled sea trout are better. White sea trout is useful for crab bait, only. Wahoo is as good [almost] as dorado. Dorado, wahoo and tuna are best served raw. Skipjack tuna is OK, raw or cooked. I've never tried stingray but people tell me that a lot of 'scallops' are punched out of the wings of rays. Oysters and various clams are very good as is abalone. Mussels are a matter of taste but we always used them for bait. Opaleye and regular surfperch are OK. I've caught two or three garibaldi but never ate one. Neither have a tried a lizardfish. Pacific sea trout [actually black cod] sold from the dory fleet of the Newport Pier are excellent.
Most of the catfish are good but I don't care much for farmed Vietnamese catfish. As a matter of fact, I'm not too crazy about farmed channel cats. A really big, old cat can be too tough to eat. Crappie [white perch] are excellent but a little soft. Bull Bream are wonderful. The various trout are OK but are not highly flavored. It is best to fry them head on, skin on. They tell me that walleyes are superb but I've never tried one. Yellow perch are very good but boney. Suckers are OK, smoked. Large mouth bass, despite the hype, are only fair. Pike: I've only had a couple but thought they were OK. Bowfin [Chupic] isn't good. Their eggs are used for 'caviar' but aren't good, either I've never tried paddlefish. Carp are actually edible if taken from clean cold water. Greater barracuda and Pacific: barracuda: good. Rainbow Runner is good. Blue runners: bad. Cobia is excellent. Flounder is very good. Atlantic cod is good but, now that commercial guys have decimated the schools, only private fishermen can take them. Bonefish aren't good and neither is tarpon. Snook is excellent. The season is limited.
The very best of the catfish is the vundu from the Zambesi. It tastes like tender pork chops. Tigerfish are good but bony. Alligator is fine and bullfrogs and even leopard frogs are excellent. Rattlesnake is very good but cotton mouths taste like they smell....horrible. Wild pigs are fair to good but not as good as domestic pork. Javelinas are good, with tender white meat that tastes nothing like pork. River turtles are OK, especially soft shells. Green Sea Turtle is the very best meat of all. No wonder they're protected, now.
I'm sure I missed a couple, especially fish, but it's only my opinion anyway.