Carolina Panthers wide receiver Xavier Legette is a Southern native through and through. That means the South Carolina native's meals might not look like yours—including his Thanksgiving dinner that could raise eyebrows among the uninitiated.
In a Dec. 11 appearance on The St. Brown Podcast, Legette explained that he sometimes eats unconventional animals like raccoons, squirrels, and rabbits. He even replaced turkey this Thanksgiving with raccoon.
Show hosts Amon-Ra and Equanimeous St. Brown had to confirm what they heard. "Like a raccoon you see in the trash can," Legette clarified. "I hunt it. I kill it. I skin ‘em. Cook ‘em. Eat ‘em. All that." For Thanksgiving, however, his family members took care of procuring the meal. "My cousins and them, they killed it," he said. "They called me like, 'Yeah, we got that 'coon for you."
As for the flavor, Legette said there's nothing like. "It's got its own taste. You know, everybody tries to stay stuff tastes like chicken. But that 'coon's got its own taste," he said.
While the menu choice might come as a shock to some, consuming animals like raccoons has a lengthy history and cultural tradition in the South. The raccoon was a part of the diet of Native Americans and was adopted as a staple by early U.S. settlers and enslaved Africans throughout the southern U.S.
Related: Watch this Raccoon Run Around Baggage Claim at Philly Airport
Mark Twain once claimed raccoon was one of his favorite American meals. It was even on the Thanksgiving menu for U.S. president Calvin Coolidge in 1926 after a Mississippi man sent him a live raccoon for the meal, though he opted to adopt it as a pet instead, according to Smithsonian magazine.
The Carolina Panthers will face off against the Dallas Cowboys on Dec. 15.
