Mortling

Side-track on top of side-track. My original goal was to follow the old logging road down to the second flattish terrace. A good patch of morels there that I found out about as a reward for catching a coon dog and calling the owner. Until I moved here, this place was considered State Forest, and he'd often picked that patch. He passed it along to me. Local geography is always interesting. I had a pair of pig's ears I'd picked up for $1.38 in the varietal meat freezer at Kroger and I'd spent the morning reading recipes. Settled on a German dish, Pea Soup With Pig's Ears. I have to learn how to say that in German (Erbsensuppe mit Schweinsohren). I know schweinsohren is pig's ear, because I've read a lot of German recipes. I'd set out a book, The Better Use Of The World's Fauna For Food, and hiked down the logging road, found the Second Terrace, a lovely opening in the woods, and naturally, there were morels, and the promise of a large flush in just a few days. Back home, I sauteed some in butter, and had them on toast, while I read recipes for dog and cat and rat. A Swiss recipe for fox, Huchspfeffer, and a couple of recipes for making dog ham. I ate mountain lion once, it was stringy (an old animal) but tasted fine. Rabbit fetuses were considered 'non-meat' by the early Catholic Church, and could be eaten on Friday. All the pig's ear recipes started with the line "clean the ears well" just like turtle recipes all start with that same line. The pig ears from Kroger are quite clean. I cook them for an hour, cool them, skin them, and cut into bite size pieces, roll them in a highly seasoned flour and fry in olive oil, add the split peas, some chicken broth, chopped onions, a minced red pepper, some very hot chilies; make a stove-top corn cake I can fry on a hot-plate, then serve with butter and sorghum molasses. I feel I've risen above my humble beginnings, but in fact it's almost exactly the same, eating cornbread and beans, listening to the coon dogs bay.