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There’s something humbling about watching food prices climb higher than the mountains of receipts in your grocery basket. It makes you wonder how people before us managed—and more importantly, what on earth they were eating. Turns out, the dinner table of the past looked very different from ours. Some dishes were born from necessity, others from abundance, and a few… well, from choices we’d rather not think too hard about.
Here are some foods that were once everyday fare—but now feel like something out of a museum exhibit.
1. Raccoon Roast at the Thanksgiving Table
Long before Thanksgiving dinners turned into debates over cranberry sauce texture, some American families sat down to a centerpiece modern diners would never expect—raccoon. In parts of the South and Midwest, it was as normal as turkey is today. St. Louis butchers even sold it fresh by the pound.
Early cookbooks described raccoon as tasting like “a mix of chicken and suckling pig,” a flavor reportedly so good that actor Anthony Mackie still swears by it. Considering that the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving meal included eels, shellfish, wildfowl, and venison—and not a single pumpkin pie—raccoon doesn’t seem as strange in context… but it still might raise an eyebrow or two today.
2. Squirrel Stew: Frontier Comfort Food
For generations of Americans living in rural communities—especially in Appalachia and the South—squirrel stew wasn’t a novelty. It was dinner. Lean, plentiful, and easy to catch, squirrel meat fit neatly into the rhythm of frontier life.
Hmong families in the U.S. have also long included squirrel in traditional dishes, valuing the animal’s rich, gamey flavor. It’s a reminder that comfort food doesn’t always come in a can or a cardboard box; sometimes it comes from whatever rustles in the trees.
3. Beaver Tail: The Original Fatty Delicacy
Before Canada had BeaverTails™, the fried carnival pastry, the original “beaver tail” was exactly that: the actual tail of a beaver, roasted over a fire.
Indigenous communities prized it for its high fat content, especially in winter, and early European trappers quickly developed a taste for its rich flavor. The fat blistered and crisped over flames, forming a chewy, savory treat. Today, aside from a few Indigenous communities who maintain the tradition, most of us only know the dessert version—crispy dough, cinnamon sugar, and zero resemblance to the original besides the shape.
4. Mock Turtle Soup: A Victorian Favorite Made of… Not Turtle
Turtle soup was all the rage in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in Britain and the United States. But hunting turtles to near-extinction created a problem: too much demand, not enough turtle.
Enter mock turtle soup—a clever imitation made from calf’s head, seasoned broth, and other ingredients meant to recreate the texture of turtle meat. By the late 1800s, Campbell’s was selling a canned version, proudly marketing it while warning customers to “Beware of Imitations,” which is ironic, considering the dish was already an imitation of the real thing.
It remained popular until tastes shifted, leaving the once-beloved soup in the culinary archives.
5. The Ortolan: France’s Most Secret—and Forbidden—Delicacy
If there were a culinary ritual that could make even seasoned food lovers pause, it’s the tradition of eating the ortolan, a tiny songbird long considered a French delicacy.
The preparation alone is astonishing: the bird is blinded or kept in darkness, fed until it doubles in size, drowned in brandy, and then roasted in its own fat. Diners traditionally cover their faces with a large napkin—some say to trap the aroma; others claim it hides the act from God. With one bite, bones and all, the eater experiences something between gastronomic extravagance and moral crisis.
The dish is now illegal to sell in France, though stories persist of secret dinners held for those willing to break both the law and their conscience.
Final Thoughts
History has a way of surprising us—especially when it comes to food. What we now consider bizarre was once simply what people had, what they could hunt, or what their traditions taught them to cherish. And centuries from now, someone might look back at our obsession with pumpkin spice and wonder how we ever lived with ourselves.
If nothing else, these forgotten dishes remind us that taste is shaped not just by flavor, but by time, necessity, and culture.
Would you try any of them? (Be honest—you’re at least curious about the beaver tail.)