9-13-06 - Dragin’ Run
Supplement – 1
How to
cook a Marmot
Introduction
Marmot
Marmot,
common name for certain large, robust
rodents found in North America, Europe, and
Asia, characterized by a blunt snout, short
ears, a short, bushy tail, and short legs.
The fur is coarse. The animals live in
burrows and hibernate during the winter; the
length of hibernation varies with the
severity of the climate. Marmots feed on
vegetation and are sometimes destructive to
cultivated crops. The cry of the marmot is a
shrill whistle.
The common European
marmot is found in the
high peaks of the Alps and Pyrenees
Mountains. The bobac is the marmot of
eastern Europe and Asia. The common marmot
of eastern North America is the woodchuck,
or groundhog. This animal is gray or brown,
with black or brown above and paler below.
It attains a length up to 0.6 m (2 ft) and
has a bushy tail up to 0.25 m (0.82 ft)
long. The whistler, or hoary marmot, is a
larger, white and gray species found in
northwestern North America. The
yellow-bellied marmot is found from
southwestern Canada to New Mexico.
Scientific classification:
Marmots belong to the family Sciuridae, of
the order Rodentia. They make up the genus
Marmota. The European marmot is
classified as Marmota marmota, the
bobac as Marmota bobak, and the
woodchuck as Marmota monax. The
whistler is classified as Marmota
caligata, and the yellow-bellied marmot
as Marmota flaviventris.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® Reference Library
2005.
© 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.
The following recipe is
a faithful and accurate representation of
the traditional Mongolian feast. We hope
you enjoy it.
Catch
a Marmot.
In Mongolia,
hunters shoot the marmot in the head to
ensure that the body and pelt are in tact.
It doesn’t serve this traditional feast if
the pelt, from neck to tail has holes in it
since steam and juices can escape. If you
cannot find a Mongolian hunter to secure the
animal, you may have to go to your favorite
gourmet shop or local trapper to secure a
fresh marmot.
Inspect the
pelt to be sure there are no tiny holes or
breaks in the skin.
If your
gourmet shop or trapper hasn’t done so,
please request that they remove the head,
leaving as much neck skin as possible. Also
request that they remove all innards before
boning the beast prior to removing the
skeleton and musculature. Remember, the
pelt must be free of small holes or cuts of
any kind. Each piece of meat removed, i.e.,
forelegs, hind legs, ribs and spine must be
cut into finger-food size and returned to
the now fur bag that was the marmot. The
prepared beast can be left out in the sun
while preparing the fire.
Look
around your desert environment and find
these small blue flowers. I know the
picture isn’t very good but if you find
something like them, its probably ok. Kind
of adds to the excitement of this special
day. It is poisonous or not. Remember,
this menu is an adventure.
Find
a safe place in the desert where you can
build a wood fire. Please note that the
wood has been cut into approximately equal
lengths. After building a bed of wood,
place about twelve to fifteen small round
stones (be careful NOT to use any stones
with sharp edges that may break or pierce
the pelt causing leaks) in the bed and cover
with more wood.
You must
obtain a large (I mean one big mutha)
blowtorch from the marmot section of your
favorite gourmet kitchen supply store, like
Williams Sonoma, or local plumbing supply
store. Not only does this eliminate the
difficulty of starting the wood to burn
quickly, it will also serve to remove the
fur from the pelt and cook the exterior of
the marmot. Finally you can proudly display
this useful kitchen appliance with your
favorite chafing dishes and other gourmet
cooking utensils.
While the
stones are heating, now is the time to
relax, take some pictures so you will be
able to remember, with a special fondness,
your first marmot BBQ. This is also a good
time to drink a beer or two while sharing a
bottle of Chinggis Khan Gold vodka. You
will be surprised how the beer and vodka
have a tendency to whet one’s appetite as
the chef burns away the fur and sears the
marmot’s flesh.
For your
information, the young man next to me is Agi,
our host and very good friend whose help and
assistance were invaluable during our stay
in Mongolia. My special thanks to him and
his wife, Shogi, both of whom exemplify the
exceptional hospitality we found among the
Mongolian people.
If the
butcher at your local gourmet shop has
prepared your marmot correctly, the meat was
placed inside the pelt of your marmot. Now
is the time for the meat to be removed and
for the exciting exercise of filling the fur
bag with hot stones, spices and flesh parts.
Roll back the
skin being careful not to let the claws of
the front feet puncture the skin. Make sure
that all flesh parts are removed and get a
mental picture of where you will place the
hot stones, i.e., in the leg cavities,
around remaining spine bits, etc.
Take your
time with this; explore all internal
cavities until you understand the marmot’s
internal anatomy. This will help when
placing the stones.
Using
a set of long BBQ tongs, carefully lift one
of the stones from the hot ashes and drop it
into the marmot’s gaping cavity. Be
especially careful with the stones as they
have a tendency to explode when held with
cold tongs. The use of a heavy coat can
reduce the skin damage done by sharp shards
of exploding rock. The picture shows
experts who know how to handle the rock so
the coat for the marmot is unnecessary.
Once
you have placed the hot rock in the marmot’s
cavity, it is essential to work the rock
into place in one of the two legs. Be
careful, escaping steam can burn you as the
rocks are moved lower and lower into the
nether regions of the marmots’s lower
extremities. Also, this heat is additive
and will have a tendency to burn your
fingers as more rocks are added.
As soon as
you have a rock base in the marmot’s bowel
area, it is now time to add a layer of flesh
parts making sure that the flesh parts and
hot rocks are firmly packed together. The
marmot bag should be hot to the touch by
this time.
OK!
Time for a short break and a little rest.
More vodka, at least two ounces each, drunk
straight and followed with a healthy pull
from a 750 ml beer bottle. A sigh of
satisfaction as one contemplates sharing the
marmot, more vodka and more beer with new
friends. Also time to survey the flat,
stony desert on the outskirts of Zamin Uud,
Mongolia. But enough, time to return one’s
attention to the task at hand.
Now its time
to add half a vodka glass full of blue
flowers and onions to the marmot’s interior
along with a very healthy handful of salt.
Continue
until you have layered all of the flesh
parts, more hot stones, the remaining
flowers, onions and more salt.
As
you can see from this picture, the marmot is
steaming due to the hot rocks searing the
meat as it is added. It is important at
this point to add the remaining meat and
seasonings quickly and seal the neck skin
with heavy wire.
Note
that the neck skin is hermetically sealed,
much like the mayonnaise jar of Johnny
Carson’s mind reading act on the old Tonight
Show, to trap all of the steam inside the
marmot pouch.
Now you are
about half done. Time for more Chinggis
Gold and another beer.
For
westerners, the idea of eating a wild rodent
is, sometimes, not as appealing as it is to
Mongolians. This is especially true when
one sees the beast puffing steam from the
only natural orifice available for its
escape. This is also exacerbated by the
remaining fur covering the skin. Western
people are just not used to seeing a fur
pouch, puffing steam and envisioning this as
a meal. But take heart, there is a
solution. Take your gourmet blowtorch and
burn away the fur being careful not to
scorch the skin.
Continue
to apply the flame of the blowtorch until
all the fur is removed, pay particular
attention to neck and tail fur, carefully
scraping the hide with a table knife until
all fur is removed. At this point you can
begin to cook the marmot pouch from the
outside with the careful application of the
blowtorch flame.
As
you continue to cook the marmot with the
flame, you will find that the fat just under
the skin exudes through the skin and can be
scraped away reducing not only your caloric
intake but reducing the cholesterol level of
the meal.
This
is the suggested presentation of the
Mongolian marmot to your guests (the towel
held under the marmot is to catch internal
juices which may occasionally drip from its
natural orifice). However, these juices can
be squeezed out after the presentation for
all to sample from a single bowl – no spoons
necessary. The juice is a bit salty.
The marmot is
then sliced from neck to orifice; and then
the flesh parts are taken out and passed
around for eating. Finally, the skin is
then cut into bite-sized pieces for
consumption.
I apologize
for not having photographs showing the happy
faces of all who participated in this
singular event. By the time we ate the
marmot we had consumed all the vodka and
beer and were too busy trying to be polite
in expressing our delight at this unique
taste treat.
For your
information and caution: Marmot fleas and
ticks are known to carry bubonic plague so
care must be exercised in the selection and
preparation of Mongolian marmot BBQ.
Bon Appetite
Jack and
Janet
On the road
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