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Issue 1453 March 17, 2012
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Are Muskrats Meat or Fish? Some Catholics Say Pope OKd 'Rats Lenten Fare

March 11, 2012       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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Jerry Witzke used to serve muskrat at the Green Hut, especially on Fridays and during Lent.
 

Wen you take off de skin of dat leetle mushrat,

An scrape off de musk an forget about dat,

Wat a beautifule fur, mon Dieu! dat is fine,

She sell for two dollar at any ole time.

--From the Monroe Boat Club website



Jerry Witzke used to serve muskrat at the Green Hut, especially on Fridays and during Lent.

The culinary delight that once was popular around here has apparently died out, since we have seen no advertising for that food lately.

But around the downriver Detroit area muskrat seems to have retained its market, especially among the French and Canadian heritage peoples of Wyandotte, Riverview, Monroe, etc.

About 25 years ago when state health officials attempted to ban muskrats, they found out just how attached local folk were to the small brown mammals.

Nearly 500 people stormed the courthouse in one community when the state was holding a hearing on the proposal to require that only state approved and inspected sources of muskrats could be served.

The Monroe Boat Club is about as vociferous in its defense of the little animals as anyone. Their website glorifies the tiny beasts thusly: "French Pete was once quoted in the Cincinnati Times Star inviting people to his Grosse Pointe home where his "ole womans" would cook mushrat for them. It would be so good they would say, "dat de mushrat is de fines' fish w'at swim de lac."

A legend persists in Monroe that local Catholics, forbidden to eat meat on Fridays, successfully petitioned the Pope in Rome to declare the muskrat to be a fish, since it lives mostly in or around water. The relatively inexpensive meat thus could provide greater variety in Friday fare, without being a strain on the pocketbook.

At a 1938 meeting of the Monroe Exchange Club, several members claimed a special dispensation had been granted by ecclesiastical authorities to permit the eating of muskrat in the Monroe vicinity on Fridays or fast days. No papal document has yet come to light in support of this legend, but not for lack of believers, according to local sources.

Boyez Dansard and several of the French trappers around Monroe reportedly asked the priest whether muskrat was fish or not. The puzzled cleric called a town meeting where the biological classification of the muskrat was debated long and hotly. Finally, one respected elder rose in the meeting to puckishly declare: "The rat, he live in water - he no animal. The rat, he walk on land - he no fish. He mus' be vegetable."

A tradition in the Reau family states that the practice dates from the winter of 1813, when their family members were driven from their homes during the aftermath of the Battle of the River Raisin during the War of 1812.

Fleeing across the ice, they ended up on Guard Island in Maumee Bay. When Father Gabriel Richard found them huddled together in some native huts, they were starving and asked for a dispensation to eat muskrats on Friday. Father Richard granted their wish.

Since then, settlers in the Bay area have claimed the dispensation applied only to them, not the rest of the French of Monroe or Newport. In more recent times, one local priest, Father Lambert LaVoy, said he had been asked hundreds of times in the confessional whether muskrat and diving ducks could be eaten as fish. While not claiming a dispensation for them, Father LaVoy simply asked if the person really believed it was fish or flesh. Those who considered it a fish were told they could eat it as such.

Lansing Bishop Kenneth Povish, a former Bay Cityan, recalled that the muskrat question was settled in 1956 when it was agreed that eating muskrat dated back so far that it had become an "immemorial custom," and therefore was allowed by canon law. Despite his Bay City roots, the bishop apparently was not a muskrat connoisseur, since he reportedly added that "anyone who could eat muskrat was doing penance worthy of the greatest saints."

Regardless of individual beliefs, it remained a wide-spread practice before World War II for housewives to call on local trappers to provide muskrats through the season for regular Friday fare.

In 1987, the Archbishop of Detroit appalled many local Catholics by declaring muskrat could no longer be eaten as fish. The Detroit Archdiocese reportedly still considers muskrat as meat, not fish.

Although fasting on Fridays is no longer required, several Catholic churches in Monroe County carry on the tradition by holding annual muskrat dinners for their parishioners. Protestant churches in Monroe County have not traditionally held muskrat dinners, although many of their members eat muskrat and have even been seen partaking of the dinners sponsored by the Catholics. Not to be outdone, however, a number of Protestant churches do hold annual game dinners, at which muskrat may be included on the menu.

In a 1988 article in the New York Times, John Holusha of the Wyandotte Journal recounted the history of muskrat eating by downriver Detroit folks. A historical authority said the devotees of the animal became known as "Mushrat French."

Supposedly one downriver resident questioned about his proclivity toward muskrat eating said: "They're cleaner than chicken," noting that the animals live in water and wash the plants they eat.

If you know of any restaurants or bars that still serve muskrat, please send us a note so all our readers can be informed. Thanks. ###

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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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