150 Next to the Ground 



possum's flesh is coarse, rank, tough, and 

 stringy. The beast is a gross and mighty 

 feeder, yet withal an epicure, eating many 

 things and much of them if he must, eating 

 the best things, and still more of them, if he 

 may. He divides the mulberry crop with the 

 squirrels, though he does not care much for 

 green corn. Sweet apples tempt him to the 

 orchard, he has also a nice taste in black- 

 berries. But none of these compare in his 

 mind with grapes and persimmons. The 

 earliest of these ripen in September. By 

 October possums are fairly edible, but it is 

 not until November that they reach their 

 prime. 



They are fat then — fat as they can wad- 

 dle. All their flesh indeed is delicate and of 

 melting richness. The skin under the gray 

 white-tipped hair glows a lively pink, like 

 the skin of a young white pig. A possum 

 is never skinned for cooking. Instead it is 

 rolled in hot ashes, and scraped as a pig is 

 scraped. It is either stuffed with sweet po- 

 tatoes, and roasted whole, or baked with the 

 potatoes in the pan all around. The cooking 

 must be thorough — the skin crisp enough to 

 crackle in the teeth. The taste of a young 

 possum, properly fat, freshly caught, and 

 dressed before he was fairly cold, is very 

 much that of a glorified sucking pig. 



