Remember when as a kid, you would catch frogs, shoot
them with your Red Rider BB' gun, chase
them, stick one into a girl's desk at school, or just
plain mess around with frogs?
We used to adventure out and around, past our bed time
with a flashlight, and a gunny sack. You just had to
shine the light into the frog's eyes, and grab it, and
shove it into the sack.
Everyone you asked who actually ate them, said that the
legs were a French favorite.
When fried, the legs would twitch, as if they were still alive.
(I never got the nasty job of cleaning the doomed frogs.)
The engineer where I work, told me that his uncle used
to wear a pair of waders, and an inner tube, and the
weapon of choice was a "Ping-Pong" paddle taped onto
a broom handle. He said that his uncle had a blast. . .
slapping the frogs unconscious, and then just
grabbing them as they floated back up to the surface!
I recently got taken out after dark, (in a boat with a
trolling motor) in search of some massive frogs, to fix
the next day as a dinner for twenty.
This adventure would be somewhat different than one of
my childhood escapades, as we were going to use cane
poles and flies.
Almost as fun as chasing them down, you just ease along
the lily pads looking for jumbo frogs, and when one is
spotted you shine the light into it's eyes, and swing
any fly out to the frog, (Barbless, with either some kind
of feathers, or rubber legs work best!) and you
just have to tickle it's nose....and gulp...it is taken.
Lift the rod and swing the frog into the boat, smack it's
head with a mallet, and toss into a sack.
Repeat, till you get enough frogs.
Now if there are some out there who are squeamish, just
look at the menu of a few high priced restaurants and you
will see this favorite is quite expensive. (And who actually
knows where they get their legs from?)
Now for the cleaning:
Sever the legs from the body at the hips, and then trim the feet off.
Peel the skin off like a tiny pair of spandex' pants.
Rinse in water, then toss into a bowl of milk.
Let soak overnight in milk. (Or at least one hour!)
Mix:
1 cup of flour
one quarter cup of cornmeal
two teaspoons of salt
one teaspoon of red pepper in a bowl.
Take legs out of milk, and put into mixture and swirl
around till covered.
Fry in hot oil for about four minutes.DO NOT OVERCOOK!
I am told that they taste like alligator, (And you can
catch them the same way as the frogs!) but I am not
going to try it and find out! ~ John
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