Mmmmm, critter!
By Russell Working Tribune staff reporter
The raccoons hunted over the fall and winter have been defrosted, cut up and soaked in brine. Choppers and dicers have hacked up apples, celery, carrots and onions to roast with the meat.
And several hundred people are preparing to crowd the American Legion post here Saturday for an annual opportunity to dine on critters that misguided urbanites might consider vermin.
Started by a barber as a fundraiser for youth sports, the Tom McNulty Coon Feed will open for the 78th year under the guidance of his widow, Lillian McNulty, and a cohort of military veterans and other volunteers.
The feed has its roots in a time before Delafield became a home to commuters working in Milwaukee, 26 miles east. Housing developments have been crowding out hunting grounds, and the ranks of the elderly volunteers have thinned. But the raccoon feed remains a throwback to an era when Al Capone hung out nearby.
"When I first heard of a coon feed, I went to my house and said, `My goodness, what's this all about?'" said Delafield Mayor Paul Craig, whose wife now volunteers at the event. "But once you partake in one, it's a fun social event. It's a jampacked room full of people just chitchatting. What a wonderful time to get out of the house and break the winter blues and meet people."
Many wild game feeds exist across the country, but few have been devoted exclusively to the masked forest bandit. Organizers of one Wisconsin game feed last year skinned and roasted a fresh roadkill bear, and many offer sampler portions of wild meat on toothpicks. But the McNulty feed has remained purist in its approach, adding only one non-game alternative, such as beef or ham, for those too queasy for raccoon.
Delafield occupies an ancient Indian settlement, said Margaret Zerwekh, a local historian. The first whites in the area were French trappers and traders, and the town was built along the United States Road, which ran from mines in Illinois and elsewhere in Wisconsin to Milwaukee. The settlement was named Delafield in 1842.
Growth of a town
Today, Delafield is a town of about 6,700 people off Interstate Highway 94 in Waukesha County. The downtown includes attractive Williamsburg and Greek revival structures built since 1990, and there are trendy boutiques, a wine bar and a coffeehouse with Persian carpets where customers surf the Web on their laptops.
In short, Delafield is quite different from the place Tom McNulty knew in the 1920s and '30s.
McNulty used to cut the hair of some notorious Chicagoans who spent time in the area, among them the gangster Jack Zuta, the former barber told the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1986. (McNulty died in 1991 at age 94, his wife said.)
In August 1930, Zuta invited McNulty to the Lakeview Hotel near Delafield to see some dancers he had brought to town.
Some mobsters from a rival gang showed up, according to the Sentinel account.
"Suddenly, five men came into the bar, Indian-style, the first carrying a Tommy gun, the rest carrying sawed-off shotguns," McNulty told the newspaper. "They each fired at Zuta, and the last one made the sign of the cross over his body. Then they got into their car and drove off."
Capone was suspected of ordering the hit, but no one was ever convicted of Zuta's slaying, the Sentinel reported.
Back in the 1920s, there were so few raccoons in the state, McNulty and his hunter friends raised the animals to "liberate them" so there would be more to shoot, he told the Tribune in 1981. But over time, the raccoon population has soared as urbanization brought more trash cans and dog bowls to raid.
There is no limit on the number of raccoons one can trap or shoot, a sign that the population is healthy, said Jolene Kuehn, furbearer assistant with the Wisconsin Bureau of Wildlife Management. Last season 214,043 raccoons were trapped or shot in the state, mainly for the sale of their pelts.
The raccoon feed began when McNulty and his pals decided to pool their meat and make an event of the end of hunting season in 1926.
"They didn't have the wives at first," added Lillian McNulty, who won't give her age but says she was young enough to be her late husband's daughter. "But the wives started asking to go."
The event grew more popular as it began serving beer and mixed drinks "for the ladies," organizers said. The record turnout was 429 people, on a bitter night when, rather than lining up out in the cold, families stayed in their cars and sent a stalwart representative to hold their place, Lillian McNulty said.
Jim Appenzeller, 72--owner of a hunting and fishing store that sells everything from guns to bottles of fox urine used as a trapping lure--helps host an annual dinner in nearby Dousman. It started as a raccoon feed 34 years ago but expanded to include rabbit, moose, beaver (tastes like poplar bark, Appenzeller said) and "silo duck," otherwise known as pigeon. Still, he likes to attend the McNulty event, which he first went to when he was 15.
Some are squeamish
Appenzeller admits that some with limited palates have qualms about raccoon, but those who dislike game tend to be most squeamish about squirrel. "They call them `tree rats,'" he said. "They say, `Aw, I don't want to eat that!' But they're darn good eatin'. So is coon."
But what does raccoon taste like? At the Delafield Legion hall, several McNulty volunteers dispute one of their own who says it tastes like beef. Raccoon tastes like raccoon, that's all, they said. And it's so good, you can eat the leftovers cold, unlike some game.
Lately, the feed has been feeling the strain of age. World War II vets--who are prominent among McNulty volunteers--are dying at a rate of more than 1,100 a day nationwide, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs (news - web sites). In Delafield, the older volunteers have been recruiting younger folks to help with the cooking and carry on the tradition.
"There was a group of guys--World War II and Korean War vets--and we called [them] the defatting crew," Schuster said, referring to those who trim the fat from the carcasses. "We lost two of them in one month. That's why we had to bring in the kids."
Zerwekh, the local historian, said that over the decades, the feed has remained a place where old-timers and newcomers gather to ponder the future and recall the changes they have seen in Delafield.
But she added that she's not a regular at the feed.
"That's because coons are my friends," she said. "But everybody else goes."
By Russell Working Tribune staff reporter
The raccoons hunted over the fall and winter have been defrosted, cut up and soaked in brine. Choppers and dicers have hacked up apples, celery, carrots and onions to roast with the meat.
And several hundred people are preparing to crowd the American Legion post here Saturday for an annual opportunity to dine on critters that misguided urbanites might consider vermin.
Started by a barber as a fundraiser for youth sports, the Tom McNulty Coon Feed will open for the 78th year under the guidance of his widow, Lillian McNulty, and a cohort of military veterans and other volunteers.
The feed has its roots in a time before Delafield became a home to commuters working in Milwaukee, 26 miles east. Housing developments have been crowding out hunting grounds, and the ranks of the elderly volunteers have thinned. But the raccoon feed remains a throwback to an era when Al Capone hung out nearby.
"When I first heard of a coon feed, I went to my house and said, `My goodness, what's this all about?'" said Delafield Mayor Paul Craig, whose wife now volunteers at the event. "But once you partake in one, it's a fun social event. It's a jampacked room full of people just chitchatting. What a wonderful time to get out of the house and break the winter blues and meet people."
Many wild game feeds exist across the country, but few have been devoted exclusively to the masked forest bandit. Organizers of one Wisconsin game feed last year skinned and roasted a fresh roadkill bear, and many offer sampler portions of wild meat on toothpicks. But the McNulty feed has remained purist in its approach, adding only one non-game alternative, such as beef or ham, for those too queasy for raccoon.
Delafield occupies an ancient Indian settlement, said Margaret Zerwekh, a local historian. The first whites in the area were French trappers and traders, and the town was built along the United States Road, which ran from mines in Illinois and elsewhere in Wisconsin to Milwaukee. The settlement was named Delafield in 1842.
Growth of a town
Today, Delafield is a town of about 6,700 people off Interstate Highway 94 in Waukesha County. The downtown includes attractive Williamsburg and Greek revival structures built since 1990, and there are trendy boutiques, a wine bar and a coffeehouse with Persian carpets where customers surf the Web on their laptops.
In short, Delafield is quite different from the place Tom McNulty knew in the 1920s and '30s.
McNulty used to cut the hair of some notorious Chicagoans who spent time in the area, among them the gangster Jack Zuta, the former barber told the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1986. (McNulty died in 1991 at age 94, his wife said.)
In August 1930, Zuta invited McNulty to the Lakeview Hotel near Delafield to see some dancers he had brought to town.
Some mobsters from a rival gang showed up, according to the Sentinel account.
"Suddenly, five men came into the bar, Indian-style, the first carrying a Tommy gun, the rest carrying sawed-off shotguns," McNulty told the newspaper. "They each fired at Zuta, and the last one made the sign of the cross over his body. Then they got into their car and drove off."
Capone was suspected of ordering the hit, but no one was ever convicted of Zuta's slaying, the Sentinel reported.
Back in the 1920s, there were so few raccoons in the state, McNulty and his hunter friends raised the animals to "liberate them" so there would be more to shoot, he told the Tribune in 1981. But over time, the raccoon population has soared as urbanization brought more trash cans and dog bowls to raid.
There is no limit on the number of raccoons one can trap or shoot, a sign that the population is healthy, said Jolene Kuehn, furbearer assistant with the Wisconsin Bureau of Wildlife Management. Last season 214,043 raccoons were trapped or shot in the state, mainly for the sale of their pelts.
The raccoon feed began when McNulty and his pals decided to pool their meat and make an event of the end of hunting season in 1926.
"They didn't have the wives at first," added Lillian McNulty, who won't give her age but says she was young enough to be her late husband's daughter. "But the wives started asking to go."
The event grew more popular as it began serving beer and mixed drinks "for the ladies," organizers said. The record turnout was 429 people, on a bitter night when, rather than lining up out in the cold, families stayed in their cars and sent a stalwart representative to hold their place, Lillian McNulty said.
Jim Appenzeller, 72--owner of a hunting and fishing store that sells everything from guns to bottles of fox urine used as a trapping lure--helps host an annual dinner in nearby Dousman. It started as a raccoon feed 34 years ago but expanded to include rabbit, moose, beaver (tastes like poplar bark, Appenzeller said) and "silo duck," otherwise known as pigeon. Still, he likes to attend the McNulty event, which he first went to when he was 15.
Some are squeamish
Appenzeller admits that some with limited palates have qualms about raccoon, but those who dislike game tend to be most squeamish about squirrel. "They call them `tree rats,'" he said. "They say, `Aw, I don't want to eat that!' But they're darn good eatin'. So is coon."
But what does raccoon taste like? At the Delafield Legion hall, several McNulty volunteers dispute one of their own who says it tastes like beef. Raccoon tastes like raccoon, that's all, they said. And it's so good, you can eat the leftovers cold, unlike some game.
Lately, the feed has been feeling the strain of age. World War II vets--who are prominent among McNulty volunteers--are dying at a rate of more than 1,100 a day nationwide, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs (news - web sites). In Delafield, the older volunteers have been recruiting younger folks to help with the cooking and carry on the tradition.
"There was a group of guys--World War II and Korean War vets--and we called [them] the defatting crew," Schuster said, referring to those who trim the fat from the carcasses. "We lost two of them in one month. That's why we had to bring in the kids."
Zerwekh, the local historian, said that over the decades, the feed has remained a place where old-timers and newcomers gather to ponder the future and recall the changes they have seen in Delafield.
But she added that she's not a regular at the feed.
"That's because coons are my friends," she said. "But everybody else goes."
