Muskrat Meals

Detroit-area Roman Catholics have one more dining option during Lent than most other followers of the faith. What that option is has everyone talking...

Local Catholics can eat muskrat "on days of abstinence, including Fridays of Lent," according to the Archdiocese of Detroit. The custom dates to the region's missionary history in the 1700s and is especially prevalent in communities along the Detroit River.

Missionary priests "realized that food was especially scarce in the region by the time Lent came around and did not want to burden Catholics unreasonably by denying them one of the few readily available sources of nutrition — however unappetizing it might be for most folks," said Edward Peters, an expert on canon law who is on the faculty at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.

Muskrats eat mostly plants and vegetation. Including their tails, the critters are about 20 to 25 inches long and weigh between 2 and 5 pounds.

In this Feb. 19, 2013 photo, a food preparer applies sherry to muskrat meat prior to the annual Muskrat Dinner at the Monroe Boat Club in Monroe, Mich.