This is a story told by my father who is a long term member if the Hampsire Wildlife Trust.
Picture yourself at a winter evening meeting at a village hall in the New Forest, attending an illustrated lecture on the life, times and problems faced by Erinaceus europaeus. At the end of the talk the meeting is opened to the floor.....
The conversation moves onto cooking and eating Mrs Tiggywinkle. The inevitable question is raised 'what does hegehog taste like then?
The presenter is nonplussed and asks for if anyone has ever eaten a hedgehog....
...after a pause an old boy says....... 'oi.. as.. eaten.... 'egehog'...
'well what does it taste like then please?'
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.......'well... thinkin 'bout it.......actu'lly..e.. tastes much like squirrel! .....
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When I was at Uni, we had a Chinese student visiting for a term or two, doing an analysis of the animal bones found on a site in Taiwan. As my work all tended to involve native British species, I was interested to know what species she was identifying. AMong them was Palm Civet. And what, I wondered, was that doing in a settlement - was it vermin, or a pets or what?
They eat it, she said. She said she'd eaten it herself.
Oh, right, and what does it taste like?
She thought for a moment, and said "Like dog!"
Then, seeing that this hadn't helped me "Oh, you never eat dog...."
We settled on 'gamey'.
But on the subject of tiggywinkles, we had a hedgehog rescue expert give a talk at St Nicks recently. A colleague who was there related a story the expert told, of being rung up by a worried member of the public saying "I found a baby hedgehog on my path, and I've put it in a box, but I'm worried, because it's not moved at all, even to try the water and food I've put in there".
Ok, says expert, I'll come round.
So she went round, and looked in the box.
It was a teasel.