Caroline Davies
London Observer
Monday, May 12, 2008

It's low in fat, low in food miles and completely free range. In fact, some claim that Sciurus carolinensis - the grey squirrel - is about as ethical a dish as it is possible to serve on a dinner plate.
The grey squirrel, the American cousin of Britain's endangered red variety, is flying off the shelves faster than hunters can shoot them, with game butchers struggling to keep up with demand. 'We put it on the shelf and it sells. It can be a dozen squirrels a day - and they all go,' said David Simpson, the director of Kingsley Village shopping centre in Fraddon, Cornwall, whose game counter began selling grey squirrel meat two months ago.

At Ridley's Fish and Game shop in Corbridge, Northumberland, the owner David Ridley says he has sold 1,000 - at £3.50 a squirrel - since he tested the market at the beginning of the year. 'I wasn't sure at first, and wondered would people really eat it. Now I take every squirrel I can get my hands on. I've had days when I have managed to get 60 and they've all sold straight away.'

Simpson likens the taste to wild boar. Ridley thinks it is more a cross between duck and lamb. 'It's moist and sweet because, basically, its diet has been berries and nuts,' he said.

Both believe its new-found popularity is partly due to its green credentials. 'People like the fact it is wild meat, low in fat and local - so no food miles,' says Simpson. Ridley reckons that patriotism also plays a part: 'Eat a grey and save a red. That's the message.'

A glut of back-to-the-wild TV programmes featuring celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has also tickled the public's palate, but squirrel is still unlikely to be found in the family fridge. The Observer's restaurant critic, Jay Rayner, said he had never tasted squirrel, but if he did have it for dinner 'it would have to be a big, fat country squirrel and not one of the mangy urban ones you see in cities'.

'People may say they are buying it because it's green and environmentally friendly, but really they're doing it out of curiosity and because of the novelty value. If they can say, "Darling, tonight we're having squirrel", then that takes care of the first 30 minutes of any dinner party conversation. I see it remaining a niche. There's not much meat on a squirrel, so I'd be surprised if farming squirrel takes off anywhere some time soon.'