Get Incensed

Every meal comes with a free car antenna accessory ….

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

But you can get a free appetizer if you hustle on over to the Wild Boar Hotel near Cumbria, England. For a limited time they’re giving patrons a chance to sample Peking-duck style wraps on the house. The filling for the wraps comes from the nearby woodlands surrounding the hotel.

You probably won’t be seeing these Chinese-style wraps at your local Applebee’s anytime soon because the restaurant’s complimentary hors d’oeuvres feature a tasty and heaping filling of grey squirrel.

I’m not sure America is ready to chow down on one half of the classic cartoon comedy team of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

The restaurant at the Wild Boar Hotel is considered one of the top restaurants in the area. Let’s be honest, though - being one of the top restaurants in England is a lot like being the best-dressed child molester.

Sure, it’s an honor but it’s not really something to brag about.

There are red squirrels in the area but their existence is threatened by an over-abundance of grey squirrels. The greys are so plentiful there is even a group, Lord Redesdale’s Red Squirrel Protection Partnership, that specializes in “trapping and dispatching greys to protect the reds.”

It all sounds very British and environmentally conscious right up to the point where a fuzzy-tailed rodent winds up being served at the afternoon buffet.

Leave it to the English to refer to a mass squirrel extermination the same way we in the U.S. refer to sending a cab out to the airport. Taxis and the pony express get “dispatched.” Squirrels get “killed.”

Still, the British may be on to something. On a rainy night in New York you can’t find a squirrel or a taxi to take you where you want to go. Or a stagecoach, for that matter.

Lord Redesdale notes, “The problem is that when we catch and dispatch greys, there is nothing we can do with them. We would like to be a supplier of grey squirrels. With an estimated five million greys in the country, there are enough of them to go round.”

That’s just crazy talk. Just because there’s a lot of something doesn’t mean you should serve it for dinner. There are a ton of little kids in my neighborhood. That doesn’t mean we should start using them to make foie gras.

Although there is this one little brat down the block ….