Well, there's been bad press for squirrels lately.  Seems that those high-falutin' scientists are at it again.  Trying to take away the simple pleasures of life.  First, it was bacon, then the eggs, and now it's my squirrel brains.

All the major newspapers are reporting that scientists at the University of Kentucky believe they've found a link to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease among folks who eat squirrel brains.  Similar results were reported in the United Kingdom where a British medical journal published a warning.  Folks in Britain are postulating  a vague relationship to mad cow disease.  Seems the disease destroys the brains of its victims who lose muscle control and mental ability, and die within a few months.

Hey!  They've said as much about everything from butter to saccharine.  Now they've gone to meddling.  What's the poor little squirrel ever done to bring such bad press on it?  And why don't they just leave us lovers of fried squirrel alone?  You don't think I believe in that scientific hocus-pocus, do you?  No sirree!

I mean, look at their own statistics.  The reports say the disease afflicts about one person in a million, usually people over age 50.  Yeah, it probably only affects folks who eat a gallon of squirrel brains every day for 25 years if they are headed west on a Tuesday.

Kentucky researchers turned up five patients between the ages of 56 and 78 who had been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.  All had reported eating squirrel brains. But another 27 squirrel-brain eaters in the same age category showed no symptoms of neurological disease.  Not very convincing scientific evidence here.  It's going to take more than that one-in-a-million chance to make me give up the glory of squirrel brains.

Those citified journalists stick up their noses when they say, "Some residents of rural regions in the United States, including Kentucky, scramble the squirrel brains with eggs, or add them to a stew known as 'burgoo.'"  Well, there's the whole problem!  Those Kentucky folks are diluting the real thing.  Squirrel brains are a delicacy to be enjoyed straight from the skull, not mixed up with eggs, potatoes, or other contaminants.  Next thing you know they will be eating them as pizza toppings!

For your edification, here's the correct way to eat squirrel brains:

First, you fry up the whole squirrel, head included.  Well, that's after you have skinned the squirrel carefully.  It's a little tricky skinning the head, but it can be done.  Most folks remove the eyes during the skinning. Your choice.

After the squirrel comes out of the skillet, and you fight the kinfolk for the rights to the squirrel brains, you settle down to one of life's better delicacies.

That's when you take your knife in your strong hand.  Now this needs to be a silverware knife - not one of those sissified knives with the plastic handles, but one with a solid piece of metal for the handle.  And one that's not sharp because you have to grab it by the blade and use the knife handle like a hammer. A good solid crack across the top of the skull, and you open up the wonder of squirrel brains.

The rest is simple.  Put the cracked head to your mouth and with one big sucking action, you down the whole thing - cranium, cerebellum, medulla oblongata and all.  Yum.  Yum.

Well, some of my pretentious friends look down on the rest of us for eating squirrel brains.  They say it's disgusting the way you have to eat them.  Well, did you ever take a good look at those important folks in their expensive seafood restaurants with their bibs and nut crackers whacking away at a lobster?  What is a lobster but an underwater version of a squirrel?  Same thing.  Same whacking action to get at the goodies.  Same sucking action to inhale the tender parcels.  The only difference is that one is a land critter and the other a sea critter.

And hey, lobsters and oysters have had their bad press days too.  Didn't stop the seafood restaurants.  And this isolated, one-in-a-million statistic won't stop us true, blue lovers of squirrel brains either!