Butcher Harvests Invasive Raccoons to Make Meatballs

The country is reportedly overrun.

Transcript

Kade is a small German village about an hour west of Berlin. The area reportedly has quite the pest problem, but rather than tossing them in the trash, one entrepreneur found a more sustainable solution: eat'em.

Raccoons were brought to Germany in the 1920s and used on fur farms. The trash pandas were first released into the wild in 1934, and now the country is reportedly overrun by some 2 million raccoons. They are an invasive species, negatively impacting local habitats, species and ecosystems. So, local officials had few options; the raccoons had to die. However, one local butcher, Michael Reiss, wanted to do it in the most sustainable way possible, and he wound up making raccoon meatballs, jarred meat, salami, bratwurst and liver sausage, among other products, at Wildererhütte, his butcher shop. 

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According to Reiss, who is also a hunter, if any animal is harvested, the best thing to do is to use as much of it as possible—and customers don't have to worry about contamination. The butcher says the raccoon meat must all pass a trichinella test. The parasitic roundworms are sometimes found in undercooked pork and other meat. Generally, any game meat shouldn't be eaten raw. 

Wildererhütte says the meat has its own unique taste that is hard to describe but "delicious." However, unlike other game that is often supplemented with pork fat because it's too lean, raccoon meat doesn't require such enhancements and thus includes very few ingredients. For example, according to the company, the raccoon meatballs contain a little more than salt, pepper, and egg. Some of the products, like the salami and knacker, combine raccoon and deer. 

Reiss came up with the idea while preparing for the Green Week international food fair in Berlin. He was brainstorming ideas that might help him stand out among the crowd. Well, it worked on a global level, generating interest from the raccoon-curious around the world. 

According to CNN, Reiss received approval from local officials to make the meat, and he's the only shop in Europe selling raccoon-based products. Unfortunately, for the raccoon-curious in the U.S., you are out of luck as Wildererhütte will only ship within Germany. I had my basket full and everything.

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