I'm pleased to see that the folks over at the AnticipateThis blog were entertained by the Patent of the Day from a few weeks ago on the squirrel skinning apparatus. It reminded me that there was a postscript to the story, which was originally sent to an internal mailing list prior to this blog's creation. There was quite a bit of discussion among us afterward on some of the, er, finer points. But I'll now revisit one topic of that general discussion. If you prefer G-rated content, you can skip the rest of this post.
First of all, there was no offense intended toward Kentucky. Actually, one of the cited references is Patent No. 7,163,452, which is also a squirrel skinning device and a method. (It's not for the squeamish; one claimed step is "inserting tail of a squirrel between said first and second gripping portions". And there are Figures. Nice Figures.) Yes, there is competition in the squirel skinning market... a rising tide lifts all boats, I suppose.
However, it is with a mix of pride and embarrassment (there should be a word coined for this emotion -- any Atlantic readers out there?) that I note the inventors are from my home state of Michigan. I haven't seen any reviews that compare the qualities of Michigan and Kentucky squirrels -- none of the restaurants I've found serve both varieties -- but I'd be curious to hear some opinions. I'm guessing that Michigan squirrel is kind of like Great Lakes coho salmon, which was artificially introduced from the Pacific northwest, and just doesn't have that same, authentic ocean flavor.
In any event, it looks like the drawbacks of traditional squirrel skinning techniques are well known north of the Mason-Dixon line, too, as described in the Background section of the '452 patent:
"Hunting is an ancient art that at one time meant survival. Today, most hunting is recreational, but many hunters still eat the animals that they hunt. Before most animals can be eaten, they must be skinned and squirrels are extremely difficult to skin. In the past, squirrels have proved difficult to skin and this has led to a decline in the number of people who still hunt and eat squirrels.
"In the past, squirrels were often cleaned by splitting the skin across its back and then pulling the two pieces in opposite direction. This is difficult and gets a lot of fur on the meat. Another method often used in the past is placing a foot on the squirrel's tail and pulling on the hind legs. This method is better, but the tail often slips or is pulled out altogether. This method also has problems with fur."
Oh, Bullwinkle. Let's hope you don't find Rocky in the wrong "hat".
"And now here's something we hope you'll really like." Back to Bilski...
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