The ultimate ethical meal: grey squirrel

"It's low in fat, low in food miles and completely free range. In fact, some claim that Sciurus carolinensis - the grey squirrel - is about as ethical a dish as it is possible to serve on a dinner plate.

The grey squirrel, the American cousin of Britain's endangered red variety, is flying off the shelves faster than hunters can shoot them, with game butchers struggling to keep up with demand. 'We put it on the shelf and it sells. It can be a dozen squirrels a day - and they all go,' said David Simpson, the director of Kingsley Village shopping centre in Fraddon, Cornwall, whose game counter began selling grey squirrel meat two months ago.

Simpson likens the taste to wild boar. Ridley thinks it is more a cross between duck and lamb. 'It's moist and sweet because, basically, its diet has been berries and nuts,' he said.

Both believe its new-found popularity is partly due to its green credentials. 'People like the fact it is wild meat, low in fat and local - so no food miles,' says Simpson. Ridley reckons that patriotism also plays a part: 'Eat a grey and save a red. That's the message.'

'People may say they are buying it because it's green and environmentally friendly, but really they're doing it out of curiosity and because of the novelty value. If they can say, "Darling, tonight we're having squirrel", then that takes care of the first 30 minutes of any dinner party conversation. I see it remaining a niche. There's not much meat on a squirrel, so I'd be surprised if farming squirrel takes off anywhere some time soon.' "

Full, suggestive article here

Do I smell senior week barbecue?

Edit: the disturbing fact that the "ultimate ethical meal" happens to involve killing lots and lots of innocent, fuzzy cutelings is not lost on me. DO NOT GO AND KILL THE SQUIRRELS. (I'm fairly sure you'd get some VDS commando team on your ass...)

Fine Dining at Schools That Aren't Wesleyan

NYTimes does a feature on colleges which draw in students with delicious dining menus - pictured above is one of Virginia Tech's dining halls - chandeliers! Does Star and Crescent have that many chandeliers? Clearly chandeliers are a mark of a superior dining facility.

Here is what looks like a fancy version of WesWings at Virginia Tech:

Bowdoin is the star attraction in the article, but Wesleyan gets cited for its commitment to organic food:

Food was definitely on Jenna Gruer’s agenda last fall as she visited colleges coast to coast. Jenna, an 18-year-old vegetarian from St. Louis, Mo., was particularly impressed by Wesleyan University.

“I heard a lot about organic food co-ops and the little organic store where you can use your dining card, and those things are important to me,” she said of its offerings.

Food alone might not be a reason to apply, she said, but it might eliminate colleges with lesser dining halls.

Great, organic food, but I can't help being a little disappointed by a typically lackluster Salisbury steak from the Usdan Classics bar when I see meat like this available elsewhere:Full article: Latest College Reading Lists: Menus With Pho and Lobster

Cheese Makers, Rock Stars

The New York Times reports a microtrend of fresh-out-of-college hipsters choosing organic farming in upstate New York over slumming around in Williamsburg:

Steeped in years of talk around college campuses and in stylish urban enclaves about the evils of factory farms (see the E. coli spinach outbreaks), the perils of relying on petroleum to deliver food over long distances (see global warming) and the beauty of greenmarkets (see the four-times-weekly locavore cornucopia in Union Square), some young urbanites are starting to put their muscles where their pro-environment, antiglobalization mouths are. They are creating small-scale farms near urban areas hungry for quality produce and willing to pay a premium.

Owen O’Connor, 22 (pictured above, right), a Wesleyan dropout, is mentioned as the namer and cofounder of the sheep- and chicken-raising venture Awesome Farm.