Hunting and eating dormouse

In_this_issue of Mladina weekly there will be a feature story on dormouse hunt AND HERE YOU CAN SEE BROADER SELECTION.

In Slovenia is an old tradition of hunting and eating dormouse. My family had (and we still have) them under the roof of our vineyard house, so when I was a kid I used to hunt them, but I don’t remember how their meat tasted. I remember that my mother didn’t want to cook them and I didn’t know how to cook anyway. My neighbor cook them, but i remembered that when I was cleaning the guts of the dormouse I forgot to take bile or gale (žolč in SLO) and the meat was so bitter!!!

I went on this assignment with two reasons. The first reason was Blaž Ogorevc, who is some sort of Tom Waits of Slovenian journalism and literature. He is really bending the rules of language and literate expression. Definitely worth reading it! Second reason was that dormouse hunt is a very traditional Slovenian thing and I’m keen on recording old traditional habits.

Let me just mention that I’m vegetarian for five of six years (and of course didn’t eat them), but I don’t find vegetarians any better or more compassionate people then meat eaters.