When selecting the best raccoon carcass for the special holiday roast, both the connoisseur and the curious should remember this simple guideline: Look for the paw.

“The paw is old school,” says Glemie Dean Beasley, a Detroit raccoon hunter and meat salesman. “It lets the customers know it’s not a cat or dog.”

“I cannot personally get enough of these grey squirrels, people are eating them. If I was getting a hundred, they would take a hundred each and every day, the demand is so high. They are sold as soon as they hit the counter,” he added.

“They are going to top restaurants, butchers, the working man. They are a delicacy and they are really hard to get – especially up this neck of the woods.”