King of the Road Kill Eaters

[TxDoc]

For roadkill gourmets, it’s finders eaters

By MIKE JACCARINO Staff Writer, (609) 978-2010

 

Jack O'Neil was driving on the outskirts of his hometown, Hammonton, one afternoon in early November when he spotted some roadkill.

 

Most people continue driving past such a sight, but O'Neil is one of the few who stops and takes a look.

 

Ten minutes later, the doe was in the back of his pickup. A day later it was steaks and cutlets in his refrigerator, and at some festive point after that, it lay on the dinner plates of family and friends. All told, that wayside deer probably fed 40 people.

 

"I don't like to see meat go to waste," said O'Neil. "There's nothing wrong with (roadkill). All hunters do it."

 

In 1997, the state Department of Environmental Protection issued nearly 700 permits to take wayside roadkill home for cooking.

 

(The number was far smaller in 2002, but the final tally is not yet completed.)

 

The DEP insists that a person taking roadkill home first get a permit from local law enforcement to ensure that game restrictions weren't violated.

 

The person taking the deer could have accidentally hit the animal, or just come across a recently killed one, as was the case with O'Neil. If it's not too rotten or badly bruised, a permit can be acquired and the venison can be brought home, filleted and eaten just the same as a deer hunted in a forest.

 

In Stafford, Michael Melchionne, the township's animal control officer, said that about a quarter of the times he and his crews arrive to remove roadkills some local resident already has snatched it.

 

"They have police scanners," he said. "They listen for when a car hits a deer and then head out. Sometimes, we're there in 10 minutes and it's already gone."

 

King of the roadkill eaters

 

The vast majority of the roadkill permits are issued in rural counties. Gloucester, Burlington, Passaic and Ocean lead the list most years. Ocean, spurred on by wooded Jackson Township, was tops in 2002 with 18.

 

It also appears that as one goes farther west into the Pinelands, more people eat roadkill.

 

Jackson is nearly in the center of the state, off Route 528, and Hammonton accounts for the majority of the permits issued in Atlantic County. There were eight given out there in 2002.

 

In Hammonton, it is commonplace to pick up a buck here and a doe there, said Farmer Parzanese, 51. Asked if he thought the practice was disgusting, Parzanese's face hardened, "Let me tell you something. I don't care what anyone thinks. That's good food."

 

And then there's Harry Jacobs, 72, aka "Hammonton Harry," "Roadkill Harry," or as Jack O'Neil said, "King of the Roadkill Eaters."

 

Jacobs has made something of a post-retirement profession out of collecting and eating roadkill. Every morning during the deer rutting or mating season, a six-week stretch in late winter, Jacobs drives about a 100-mile route clear up to Lakehurst in search of roadkill.

 

Jacobs pulled his first roadkill off the side of the road around 1968, just after he took a job at the power plant in Salem. It wasn't that he needed the food, although officials say some of the people who take roadkill do it to get by. Jacobs just didn't want to see the food go to waste.

 

"I give most of it away anyway," he said.

 

Indeed, some people around Hammonton, like Parzanese, said they get as much as 80 pounds of venison from Jacobs during deer season.

 

"I don't need the food," said Jacobs, who receives Social Security and a union pension. "It keeps me alive, gives me something to look forward to beside nothing."

 

Not for everybody

 

The number of DEP roadkill permits issued each year has fallen in the recent past.

 

In 1997, 699 permits were issued; 608 in 1998; 514 in 1999; 355 in 2000; and 203 in 2001. The figures are falling at a time when there are possibly more deer in the Garden State than there has been in a long time. Clearly, roadkill is not for everybody.

 

Those who do eat roadkill share a few qualities. They predominately hunt and are familiar with how to filet a deer.

 

They're also rustic folk. Parzanese got the name "Farmer" as a child for wearing overalls to baseball practice.

 

Jacobs raises rabbits, chickens and goats on a 10-acre plot he owns near his First Street home. "I'm a survivor," he said proudly.

 

But above all, the overriding trait in common is that roadkill eaters don't appear to care very much about image and what other people think.

 

For better or worse, Jacobs' lawn is cluttered with debris and there's a bucket of something out front that seems to be rotting. He's drinking sour-tasting wine at 10 in the morning.

 

Parzanese wears a beat-up Giants sweatshirt. And when O'Neil was asked about eating roadkill, he replied, "Who cares what it looks like? It's still good meat."

 

Jacobs has a good story that supports this idea. His daughter married a man who was from a well-heeled Delaware family.

 

At first, when Jacobs brought around roadkill, his son-in-law didn't go for it. Now, he can't get enough. In fact, the only time Jacobs' son-in-law now refuses the dish is when his high-minded parents come to town.