If drinking aquavit flavored with a skunk's anal glands directly from the animal's taxidermied corpse sounds like your ideal Saturday evening, you really missed out at this year's Small Game Dinner. The annual celebration of all things musky with claws celebrated its 5th year, this time at the Andrew Freeman Mansion in the Bronx, where hosts Bronx Pipe Smoking Society presented an elaborate spread of insect-based appetizers, beaver tail tacos, roasted coyote and lots of other underserved meats. "Anything with a face tastes good," one guest remarked. Yes, even skunk.
As always, Bronx culinary ambassador Baron Ambrosia brought his passion for delicious animals and his signature sartorial flair—that's him wearing a bear's head as a hat. That was well matched to the Pipe of the Year, made by the Baron and Divya Anantharaman out of a coyote's head and filled with rare Perique tobacco and dried beaver castors, the scent glands located between the animal's pelvis and tail.
Beaver was a big attraction at the meal as well, showing up as tail chicharron in tacos and coated in Moroccan spices and served with pork blood for a main course. Besides the booze luge, skunk was also on the menu for dessert, in a black & white cake, a bacon caramel walnut tart and a skunk blueberry tart. There was also jerked porcupine meat, braised bobcat with tomato, golden raisin, white balsamic and pecorino romano polenta, as well as fox, muskrat and a rich, pine-cured fishercat (weasel) with pickled blueberry creme fraiche.
