Before you start Googling the number for the RSPCA let me point out that hedgehogs are listed as a protected species and unless you scrape one off the M6, I am in no way encouraging you to eat one. If you’re interested in just how you would go about cooking Mrs Tiggywinkle for Sunday lunch though, read on!
I have a problem, I am addicted to books. I have thousands of them, really, THOUSANDS. I have more books than I would ever be able to read in my lifetime. “Why the hell do you have so many books!?” I suppose I have an obsessive thirst for knowledge and, as with any addiction, I just can’t stop myself from indulging. What has this got to do with hedgehogs!? Well, after our first trip to Provence I was hooked (my addictive nature again) I scoured the internet and bought every book I could find pertaining to the region – travel, fiction, reference, art, and as a keen cook many recipe books – why have one recipe for ratatouille when you can have twenty!? I was flicking through one of these tomes the other day, looking for culinary inspiration, when I happened upon a recipe for hedgehog. Hang on, did I read that right? HEDGEHOG!? Was this just going to tell me to wrap a large spud in foil and use it as a pincushion for cheese & pineapple on sticks? The book in question was Jenny Baker’s Simple French Cuisine – from Provence & Languedoc. I have reproduced the entry here as published.
Hedgehog in clay – Hérisson à la terre
I have always wondered just how the gypsies went about cooking their hedgehogs and when I came across a recipe for baking partridge and other small game in clay in André Bonnaure’s La cuisine en Languedoc, I thought I might have found the answer. You take a large lump of clay and sprinkle it with a little eau-de-vie. Knead it well and wrap it, gingerly, around the hedgehog. The coating must be 1-2 cm thick. Make a hole in the ground 30-40 cm deep. Line it with flat stones and make a wood fire which must burn briskly for half an hour. Push the hedgehog into the hot ash and keep the fire at a cracking pace for a further half an hour. Break away the hard shell of baked clay which will come away with the sharp spines. Please don’t write and protest . . . I don’t intend to try it.
I needed more information, could this be true? I couldn’t find any other recipes for hedgehogs in any of my other cookery books, could Ms. Baker have got it wrong? It was time to turn to the internet for further investigation. My initial foray into Google threw up press articles relating to hedgehogs baked in clay, not from France, but from England (Independent – Thursday 13 Sep 2007) Apparently, we have been eating them for years! I then discovered photographic evidence of Gypsies eating hedgehog just outside Birmingham on the Museum of English Rural Life website.
But what does hedgehog taste like? Chicken? Lamb? Beef? Pork? Frogs Legs (chicken – apparently)? Enter the ‘Discovery Channel’ and survival expert Ed Stafford (who I have never heard of, probably because I spend too much of my spare time reading my books!) – if you are in any way squeamish I recommend you don’t watch the following video – Ed is topless throughout.
So there you have it! The next time a Gypsy sets fire to a mattress in your back garden ask yourself, are they just avoiding paying a charge at the local tip or are they cooking hedgehogs!?
Have you ever cooked or eaten a hedgehog? (I can’t believe I’m writing this) If so, we would love to hear about your experience, good or bad!
Because of my project, I am searching about hedgehogs on the internet. I was just reading that hedgehog can form a ball of spines at http://adidarwinian.com/the-hedgehog-the-spiny-ball/ and now you are talking about eating these spiny animals. How can you even think of eating such weird creatures?