George Brown
By George Brown

Let’s clear up one misnomer right from the start. The word is possum, not “O” possum. Only city folks call possums opossums. You can look it up to read for yourself but here is a short history of how the possum came to be known as the opossum. (Reference: “Opossum vs. Possum”, Chapter 34, from “An Anthology: The Complete History of Didelphimorphia”, published by Brown Steele & Co. 1827).

When European settlers arrived in America the native people referred to this marsupial as dapossum, as in, “Try da possum, it plenty good white meat.” Use of the word “dapossum” (instead of simply, possum) caught on, but a full century passed before colonists took to the idea of actually eating dapossum, the main reason being that dapossums looked (and still do) like very large rats.

But this all changed in the year 1720 when a fellow by the name of Oloff O’Malley (of Swede Irish descent) decided to open a tavern in Chatsworth, Virginia. The challenge Oloff faced was coming up with a menu that would set his tavern apart from all the others, all of which served the common fair of the day, such as hamburgers, hotdogs, fried chicken, and so on. O’Malley’s wife, Rose (who happened to be Irish and after whom he had decided to name the tavern, “My Wild Irish Rose”), suggested that they build their menu around dapossum. “There are plenty of them to be had”, Rose argued, “And the Indians have hundreds of recipes for cooking dapossum.” (Rose exaggerated in the number of recipes the Indians had for preparing dapossum, but only slightly.)

After a time Oloff warmed to the idea, influenced in large part by Rose fixing a different dapossum dish for supper every night for two straight weeks, using recipes she had gotten from an Indian friend. “Okay, you’ve finally convinced me”, Oloff conceded one evening, as he wiped his plate clean. “But there’s just one problem, Rose, we’ve got to come up with a different name for dapossum than dapossum.”

“Yes, I agree, and I’ve been giving that some thought”, said Rose. “Instead of naming the tavern after me, let’s drop the Da from dapossum and replace it with an O, then we can call our tavern the “Triple O Tavern”.

Before Rose could explain, Oloff interrupted, “Whatever does that stand for?”

“The Oloff O’Malley O’possum Tavern”, Rose said, smiling.

Oloff paused, drew a puff on his pipe and remarked, “You know that spells TOOOT, don’t you? Maybe we should call it “Tooot’s Place”.

This prompted a discussion about which name might best attract patrons. “The Triple O” finally won out, and, as they say, the rest is history. The tavern opened and the upper class citizenry of Chatsworth soon took a liking to Oloff and Rose’s O’possum menu, and in short order dapossum became known as opossum throughout the land, except among the Indians who thought it a queer name.

And so it is that the word opossum continues in wide use among city folks to this day. But, if you visit any hollow up and down the Southern Appalachians, you will still hear the locals refer to opossum simply as possum or, occasionally, dapossum, as in “Yes sir, dapossum is mighty good eat’n.”

With this name clarification out of the way, I will share a few thoughts about the merits of possum as an American delicacy, and of my hope that it will one day return to the supper tables of homes throughout America, including my own. (Yes, I know I could cook it myself, but bringing a dead possum into our home would likely result in my permanent banishment to our backyard camper.)

Nobody cooked possum like my Mom, except maybe her Mom or her Mom before her. Possum and taters, possum pie, possum patties with grits and eggs, and, of course, possum stew. It was all good, but I have to say, my favorite was always the possum patties with grits and eggs.

It’s sad that eating possum, groundhog and raccoon has fallen out of favor, but, luckily for me, my sister Kathy still cooks these meats any time she can get some fresh kill (usually found as she drives to and from her home near Fredericktown. She keeps a styrofoam cooler in her car expressly for this purpose.) Kathy makes an awesome possum stew, something I wrote about a couple of years ago when she made a pot for my birthday, but she has come up with several new ways of cooking possum that I don’t think she will mind my sharing with you.

“Remember how Mom always gave the tails to the dog?”, Kathy said when we were talking on the phone recently. “I’ve figured out a way to dry and season them to make possum jerky.”

“Um, sounds good”, I told her. “Do you have any other new recipes?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Kathy said. “Remember how we use to play with the possum pups when we were kids, before Mom took them for stew? I figured out that you can roll them in batter and deep fry them. I call them possum nuggets.” Kathy went on to tell me how she had trapped a pair of possums and was raising them for stew and such, when the idea came to her to try extracting the pups from the mother’s pouch when they were about six weeks old. “George”, Kathy said excitedly, “They’re delicious, and you can get as many as 13 possum nuggets at a time!” (Note: I know baby possums are called Joey’s, but we called them pups when we were kids. And for readers who may not know, a possum has 13 teats, and typically raises 10-13 pups in each litter.)

Kathy went on to tell me about several more of her new recipes, like possum kabobs, possum potpie, and possum chili. We fell into a conversation about joining efforts to open a restaurant called the Possum Parlor, but quickly concluded that doing so was to risky because people’s possum prejudices are still too great to have confidence that we could make a go of it. But, luckily for me, Kathy promised she’ll make some possum nuggets the next time I visit.