The Fact of the Matter Is…
From the Files of Gustavus Historical Archives & Antiquities (GHAA)
Q - Did the early homesteaders of Gustavus hunt or eat porcupine?
A - GHAA has a report of one old-timer, when asked if porcupine tasted good, declaring “a little like chicken, I guess.” What we can’t tell you (because we have no way of knowing), is just how “little” that might have been, or how big of a stretch the guess!
In Alaska, the old stories of porcupine as table fare generally involved desperate survival situations—the shipwrecked, the lost-in-a-blizzard trapper, the downed bush pilot, or the starving prospector who because a gold nugget (the size of his fist) was just over the next mountain range, didn’t have enough sense to come in out of the cold.
In truth, the meat of the porcupine is well worth utilizing if one is hungry enough. Because of its slow-moving gait (if you can overlook how merrily it chortles to itself), it is easily caught up to and can be killed with nothing more than a rock or stick close at hand. There have been wilderness survival stories, over the years, where the lost, injured, or hungry have actually eaten the meat in the raw.
We did find a recipe in the Parker Family’s old things that called for using the “legs only” of the porcupine with “all the fat trimmed away”. The legs were to be soaked a minimum of 6-10 hours over-night in salt brine (obviously we’re not talking survival mode here). When drained, they were to be rolled in flour or corn meal and browned quickly in hot fat, then simmered in a Dutch oven 3-4 hours and seasoned with salt, pepper, onions, garlic, or “any herbs on hand”. Gravy could be made with flour, water, and drippings of fat from the frying pan and poured over the meat.
Sounds like a lot of work to us. And with all the soaking, browning and simmering, the four little legs have just got to be real tough to begin with! Maybe all the seasonings saved the day, but we can only believe if it tasted even HALF like chicken it would enjoy a reputation with a rating somewhere above survival fare. No wonder the truly desperate ate it raw. This recipe required up to 14 hours.
So, in answer to your question, we believe most of the homesteaders probably did try it. It would have been a natural curiosity if nothing else. And some tried it for sure. But everyone knows how word gets around in a small community. It likely would not have received a ringing endorsement and though there were lean years, we have no evidence that it was a regular staple in any ones diet.
GHAA Warning: Don’t try this one at home. Let the tough little creatures pass by safe and unmolested as they have (for the most part) all these many years!