Children sample chef's squirrel surprise
However, that may be about to change.
Chef Gareth Eddy expertly cut up freshly caught grey squirrel before cooking it with a range of root vegetables and serving it to children yesterday.
The spectacle was part of the Kids' Cook School with pupils from Boscastle Community Primary School in North Cornwall.
The session forms part of the Boscastle Festival of Food, Art and Crafts, which gets into full swing today.
Mr Eddy, head chef at Da Boes Restaurant at the Molesworth Arms Hotel in Wadebridge, said: "The squirrel is to open these children's minds up and get them looking at something different.
"I think it's more important to get children to try rabbit because there's an abundance of them."
A range of local wild foods were on offer, including shark from St Ives, mussels and a Canada goose shot on the Pencarrow estate, near Bodmin.
Eating squirrel has been in the news before. In 2006, Conservative peer Lord Inglewood said celebrity chef Jamie Oliver should encourage schoolchildren to eat grey squirrel in an effort to save the endangered red species.
Helped by three young would-be cooks, Mr Eddy proceeded to prepare squirrel stew and dumplings, using all-Cornish ingredients, which got the thumbs up from most of those who sampled it when cooked.
The Boscastle Festival continues until tomorrow with events at locations throughout the village and cookery demonstrations from chefs including Kevin Viner, who has served squirrel at his restaurant in Summercourt, near Neewquay, Neil Haydock, from Fifteen Cornwall, and Mr Eddy.
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