Eating a Porcupine

I woke up on a recent Saturday morning excited for what the day would bring. For over three years Dragon and Bean have regaled me with their nature camp stories: carrying fire in mushrooms, bobcat dodgeball, making birchbark canoes, dying cloth with black walnut pods, whittling dos and don’t, fox ears, owl eyes, etc etc. Last month’s adult class included whittling and cordage made from the inner bark of basswood - right in line with what I expected from my children’s stories.

The second session we were greeted by a porcupine who had recently (that morning most likely) been hit by a car. Not only that, but we had a guest teacher who has spent the last few years becoming quite adept at tanning and processing roadkill. It seemed as though the Universe was nudging us in a certain direction.

Our culture has built a very high wall between the bucolic cows grazing on the hill in the sunshine and the juicy burger on the plate.* This wall obfuscates and softens the grisly steps of killing, skinning, deboning, and rendering that animal into parts for human consumption. We have also deemed it okay to eat certain meats but not other meats.**

It is a system that coddles us.

It is a system that sequesters us.

It is a system that separates us - and our ability to be in integrity with our choices.

Processing your own meat is immediate. There is a smell. The body might be stiff or loose. You might get poked by a claw or a quill. The eyes look at you. It is impossible to pretend you are consuming a creature who did not breathe the same air and drink the same water and walk on the same soil - who lived.

This is what I learned from my morning with the porcupine. The pads of his feet were thick and rough and feel like elephant skin. His body was made for climbing trees: curved claws and strong bicep muscles. His incisors were tinged orange from the iron - enabling him to cut through wood. Most of his herbivore body was his intestines. He had many engorged ticks on his belly - still attached though his heart was no longer beating.

His meat did not taste like chicken.

Thank you porcupine for your life that we might learn from you.

Thank you for sharing yourself with us.

Thank you the discomfort I felt in the moment and I feel now writing about this.

If you are interested in harvesting more of your own meat, it is possible to call your local sheriff or conservation officer and adding your name to your local “vehicular meat raffle.”

Cheers to making choices with our eyes wide open.

*I have spoken before about this: animal rights activists being labeled domestic terrorists for taking pictures of factory farms and the tragedy of meat packing workers during Covid.

**Dormice were a delicacy in ancient Rome.