Sadly, this is my last day in paradise. Tomorrow I must travel to Warsaw for lecturing, but will also engage in some sightseeing, and, of course, nomming. On the 14th I head to Krakow for a talk and a “debate” (a discussion, really).
Yesterday was the weekly market in Dobrzyn, so here are some photos:
This man was selling dried mushrooms from his car. He was surrounded by several other guys, and when I asked to take a picture, they moved aside because this guy, they said, was “The Boss.” I guess that means he’ll sell you a mushroom you can’t refuse!
This woman, apparently from a farm, was selling a variety of products including ducks, homemade honey, eggs, and potatoes.
When I asked what was in the bottles, I was told “blood”! Apparently the duck blood is used to make a soup called czernina.
I was also told of a Polish tradition: if a young man was courting a young woman, and visited her family’s home for dinner, it was a sign that he was not considered a suitable mate if the dinner started with this soup. The Polish word for this soup-indicated rejection was czarna polewka. (There were many reasons for rejection before meeting a potential suitor, including poverty and coming from a different town.)
Delicious vine-ripened tomatoes:
Much of the former market consisted of farmers, some of whom drove their produce to market in horsecarts. Now there are a lot of stalls selling cheap clothing from China, and the produce stalls have been displaced by a supermarket on the town square. Such is “progress.” Nevertheless, the supermarket also has a tempting variety of wares.
Take the meat section, for instance, which is loaded with sausages:
and other types of encased meats:
and the famous Polish hams:
as well as a bunch of unidentified meat products, some of them en gelée:
My hosts, who don’t drink much, bought me a beer for dinner. This one, Zubr, is strong (6% alcohol) and its name means, as the picture suggests, “Bison.”
Pictured on the bottle is the famous European bison (Bison bonasus), a species distinct from the American bison, or buffalo. This species was indigenous to the Białowieża Forest, the last remaining patch of undisturbed forest in Europe. The forest straddles Poland and Belarus, and is a United Nations Heritage site. The bison were shot to extinction there, but have been reintroduced there and elsewhere.
Here’s a picture of one (not mine):
The beer, by the way, was very good.
A reader previously asked how to make those luscious poppy-seed cakes one finds in Poland. They’re time-consuming because you have to first soak and then purée the poppy seeds. The task is made considerably easier when you can buy them pre-puréed:
Several of the markets also sold sunflower heads; this is presumably so you can eat (or plant) the seeds:
Vodka is the Polish national drink, of course, and I’m told is consumed in vast quantities. Alcoholism, and drunk driving, appears to be a serious national problem.
Here’s the cherry pie that Malgorzata made yesterday. I have to note my own contribution of shelling three cups of walnuts for the crust. The combination of a heavily walnut-y crust and home-grown sour cherries made this the best cherry pie I’ve ever eaten:
After dinner last night we had a choice of two desserts: the pie or a homemade plum tart, also made by Malgorzata. Andrzej opted for the tart, leaving more pie for the rest of us. (Note that he is wearing a University of Chicago sweatshirt.)
I still maintain that the best of all possible breakfasts is pie (and coffee):
Hili was out in the rain this morning, returned home sodden, and immediately fell asleep (on the bed of Emma the d*g, who is always forced to sleep on the floor).
Once again she exposed her fangs:
Sadly, those fangs had been put to use, for Hili deposited a dead mammal on the front porch. I’m no mammalogist, but it looks like a shrew to me. I’m sure some reader can identify it:
Outstanding pictures of market food, and thanks for the close-ups! When the Discovery Institute finally throw-out all the college professors, and replace them with bible-scholars,and the USA resembles Iran, Prof Ceiling Cat will have a job as a travel writer.
Incidently, I wrote the world’s best-selling guidebook; 12 million copies in seven languages sold! The editor cut-down my pictures of food.
I have really enjoyed these dispatches from Poland. Thanks for sharing.
i like the market and places where food dry meat and dry mushroom and here is different in Australia and very good to see again. i love it thank – you .
“as well as a bunch of unidentified meat products, some of them en gelée:”
Oh, I remember my grandmother making head cheese for my great-grandfather (the Jewish/Polish side of the family)… he really loved his fried liver too… those were the days I would definitely take long walks or climb a tree (to be as far away from the smell as possible). I loved my Papa, just not keen on the head cheese nor the liver (oddly I do like a good duck or salmon liver pâté, oh and ox tail soup or better yet tongue soup, he liked that one too).
What do the “en gelée” meats taste like and how are they eaten? Sorry, but I have to say that they don’t look terribly appealing.
You know the “aspic” (solidified gelatine) that you often find as a filler between the meat of a “wee growler” (pork pie, from Melton Mowbray, if you’re a foodie, but there are plenty of other sources of varying quality) and the pastry of the pie ; well it’s like that, but with more of the aspic and a variety of meats – tongue, liver, tripe suspended in the jelly, and the flavours intermingled to some degree. The size of the chunks affect the degree of mixing ,unsurprisingly. Shourt version : delicious!
Typically (in Britain) as slices of however thick you want, between one or two slices of bread. Or, if you’re feeling hungry, as a slice or a chunk.
It depends on what you grew up with. I’m regretting not reading the menu at last night’s restaurant in Gabon more closely, because I missed the “Lapin chasseur”. I haven’t had bunny stew for ages! But I’ll remember next time I’m in the country.
Thanks for the information. Yes, I like pork pies, so long as there’s not too much jelly. But I don’t think I could stomach the en glee meats in Poland. Too much jelly. If hat was served to me I’d have to ponder whether to cut out most of the jelly and leave it on my plate or just eat it as a good guest.
Eat it like a good guest, and burp when appropriate. A pig (probably) DIED to make that lovely looking “brawn”. In fact, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it …
Eat it like a good guest, and burp when appropriate. A pig (probably) DIED to make that lovely looking “brawn”. In fact, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it …
We call them “brawn” in Britain, though it’s getting really difficult to find them these days.
In British English, “head cheese” has less than appetising associations.
“In British English, “head cheese” has less than appetising associations.”
Um, yes. I agree I’d pass on that dish.
As for identifying that last photo…methinks it is like a weasel.
…sorry….
b&
Very shrewd of you.
The supermarket has its meats under refrigeration at least. Although in Poland it probably can get cold enough to sell raw ducks outside.
BTW, my maternal grandparents were Polish and right off the boat (as they say). My mother spoke both Polish and English, but refused to teach us kids the language. “We’re not in Poland, you must assimilate”. Which is probably something she got from my grandparents, but since I spoke native English, why would a sprinkling of Polish matter? I will always regret not growing up bilingual.
That’s the way my Polish grandparents thought as well. They rarely used it around us. Eventually they stopped, and said they forgot it. I am not sure if I believe them.
The animal is a shrew.
Yes, but has it been tamed?
What, is nobody else brushing up on Shakespeare?
b&
On Ben’s thought of brushing-up on Shakespeare.
I directed Taming of the Shrew twice: once at UCSC, and another time at the Waterfront Playhouse; Key West, Florida. (We scientists get around!) It’s a curious play with some ambiguity on male/female tensions. I tried it a feminist version, but it just did not ring true. In key West, I did a bawdy version, with nudity and fleeting bottoms. In the scene where Hortensio meets with Petruchio, I had Petruchio leaning out of his upper window alongside a couple of pouting street-girls wrapped in a sheet. Petruchio comes down to his door with his girl, while pulling-up his britches. He goes to mop his sweaty brow with a large kerchief, which rolls out of his hand to reveal itself to be an enormous bra! The powerful final scene on women’s ambivalence about marriage remained as good as ever. Go see the play, but it’ll never be as good as my versions. Maybe.
“fleeting bottoms”??? – I LOVE that phrase!
fleeting bottoms fleeting bottoms fleeting bottoms…
Probably the common Eurasian shrew, Sorex araneus.
Sorex araneus, the most common European shrew. Tell the cat it’s a protected species.
By the way, the Boss’s mushrooms are ceps and bay boletes (Boletus/Xerocomus badius). Both are highly valued in Poland and dried to be used throughout the winter season. They are important ingredients in several traditional Christmas Eve dishes, in bigos, in barszcz, and in żurek.
There was a technician from Poland in the lab where I did my graduate work, and I went to her house for holiday suppers several times where bigos was served (among other things, and along with more than enough vodka dispensed enthusiastically by her husband). It was awesome, but what was most interesting was that part of the preparation was to freeze it then reheat it before it was consumed. Apparently this was necessary for the right flavor and texture.
Bigos (hunter’s stew), like many stews, tastes better the longer the different flavors have to mingle. When I make it – it has a lot of ingredients but is easy to make – I try not to eat much on the day it is made. I refrigerate some and freeze the rest. Some maintain that you should freeze all of it and thaw it to maximize the flavor. Everyone has their own recipe. I do not like sauerkraut so I REALLY wash the kraut and use more fresh cabbage. I do put in a prune or two but use more apples than most. And I go overboard on the mushrooms – I really like mushrooms.
For why I think it is a water shrew, see below…
In one of his earlier posts, Jerry had a picture from a deli that included a “grilowa” sausage. That is a sausage meant to be grilled. Polish takes a lot of words from English these days. The Polish word for weekend is – weekend and pronounced (kind of) the same as we do in English. If there was a Polish word spelled that way, the pronunciation would be something like “veh-eh-kend”. But they say weekend even though there is no word with the wee sound in Polish (that I could think of).
The development of grilowa kielbasa is interesting. Most immigration to the US ended after the First World War. My parents were part of the tiny group of emigres who were Polish soldiers who got out and fought in the west during WWII. Poles started coming in the late 1970s on visitor visas – and overstaying them. When martial law was declared in December of 1981, Dan Rostenkowski got a law passed that said that Poles could not be deported. The “Stara Polonia” that came before WWI and built all the churches was fading – in the suburbs and fully assimilated. But this new group (primarily in Chicago and New York but not in other cities like Buffalo and Cleveland that had large Polish communities) revitalized the Polish community. One thing that sprang up were services (the first and still the biggest is Polamer) that delivered packages to family in Poland. They collected packages until they had a full shipping container and sent it to Poland and home delivered the package.
One of the most popular items that was sent was a Weber Kettle. The package it came in was perfectly sized for shipment. Polamer eventually just stocked them in Poland and you could pay for one to be delivered in Poland. For Poles to survive back then, you had to have family “na wsi” – in the country or have a “dzialka” – a small plot of land you went to on weekends where you grew food. Using a Weber kettle on the weekends became very popular.
One of the best things to grill – although since it is already smoked you do not have to cook it – is “wiejska” kielbasa – country or peasant sausage. It is usually the cheapest but has a high fat content which makes it ideal for grilling. Problem is long links of sausage are hard to grill and if you cut it, the juices run out during the grilling. So a version of wiejska kielbasa about the size of a bratwurst was developed – and kielbasa grilowa was born.
I converted the price from zloty per kilo to dollars per pound and it was $1.49 in Jerry’s picture. I can get it here for $1.99.
Great comment, thank you.
+1
I like to call the mid-week the stong end.
I’ve unfortunately never went to the US and I’m not a big beer fan but I have heard that American beers are less strong than, say, European ones… and indeed, 6% seems to me at the low end* of beers my friends bring over sometimes.
Can someone inform me on this?
*Though I have a hard time drinking stronger beer than that myself.
Mass-produced beers in cans (Coors, Budweiser, and their ilk) are typically around 3% as I recall. (I never buy these beers myself.)
Craft beers from regional brewers are usually in the 5-6% range, but many of these brewers also make stronger beers and barleywines up to around 8% or 9%.
Our most popular beers (Tyskie, Żywiec, Lech) have an alcohol content of 5-5.7%, but there are also strong brands in the 6-9.5% range. If you know whwre to look, some local brands are delicious.
Most mass-produced everyday beers (the boring kind) hover around 5% (Bud, for example) or a touch less.
Their “light” counterparts are usually calibrated to be the ideal “session” strength (the same as Guinness): 4.2%. This is not necessarily a bad thing and many craft breweries are beginning to produce their own session beers. Try some of the session IPAs if you haven’t already.
Most IPAs (India Pale Ales), which are the flagship style of American craft beer enthusiasts are usually anywhere from 5% to 7 and change, with the stronger, so-called Double IPAs weighing in around 7.5 -11%.
Personally, I wouldn’t consider 6% to be particularly strong as almost all the regular (not high gravity) beers that are on tap at my local brew pub are between 5.5% and 6.8%, but 6% ABV is probably about 150% of that of the average beer consumed by the average American.
For the curious, the highest ABV beer that I know of (although I imagine there exist higher) is Dogfish Head 120, a brutal 18% brew that dares to call itself a double IPA (it doesn’t taste like one). I can’t recommend it as anything more than a novelty.
That’s more than many sherries….
b&
“Brewdog“, up in the “Bloo Toon” of Fraserburgh, do regular production of “Tactical Nuclear Penguin”, at 32%. I’ve asked for a bottle several times in their bar on Marischal Street (former site of the Marischal Bar, one of the city’s finest spit’n’sawdust pits), but each time I’ve been told that the waiting list for the next batch is full, so I’d need to put my order in at least 5 weeks in advance. Methinks I smell a marketing gimmick, though a former colleague who lived closer to the bar and frequented it much more often, has tried it and declared it “memorable, until after you drink it”.
Apparently, they have been in a tit-for-tat race against a German brewery for the title “worlds strongest beer”, which has passed from Brewdog’s TNP to the Germans, back to Brewdog (“Sink The Bismark” at 41%), back to the Germans, back to Brewdog (“the End of History”, 55% freeze distilled) … and I suspect that the race is still on.
I never got better than about 18% (“Shotgun”, because “you put it in your mouth and it blows your brains out”, a two barrel run using undepleted uranium as a source of variation for “improving” the yeast involved. It rendered some Belgians who brought a 12% Trappist monk beer to the table speechless (for the one sensible enough to take a half-glass) and unconscious (the one who took a full glass). At which point I retired the home brew kit as being fun, but far too much like hard work.
IMHO, freeze distilling is cheating. It’s too easy.
How on earth they get into the 40s of percent ABV, I don’t know – I suspect by the same techniques as “skunk” weed was created from normal marijuana – artificial selection, as Darwin described with his pigeons.
55% alcohol is 110 proof. In what sense of the word does it make sense to call that “beer”?
It’s an impressive technological achievement, but I’m sure I don’t personally see the point of the exercise. Bully for those who do, of course, but….
b&
There’s a political sub-text : the government are trying to cut down on consumption of alcohol ; manufacturers and sellers of alcohol are using many tools to fight back, including reductio ad absurdum. Plus, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”.
US has great microbreweries, I heard they started their popularity, but I wouldn’t give much for their mass-produced cans*.
A trick was to buy the cheaper beer, because poor production added taste. I.e. “Lone Star” is way better than “Bud”.
*OB joke to remember their strength:
– What is the likeness between american beer and making love in a canoe?
– ???
– They are both f**ing close to water!
American mass market beer is terrible – and the most popular are light beers. Why even drink beer? I am not a big fan of Polish beers. They are OK. There are so many great American craft beers to taste that I do not even drink imports anymore. And I have a neighbor who home brews and I am one of his tasters.
The best Polish beers I had in Poland are never imported into the US. (That I know of.)
They sell cases and sixpacks of that beer in my local Costco. Another of the many reasons I love New York.
Yes I thought it was cute that Jerry identified the 6% beer as strong. :)6% is about normal here and 12 or 13% is strong.
It can also be confusing to Canadians because you can drink so many more beers in America and not feel anything.
Well … 9% abv is very strong beer. 12% qualifies as barley wine and is close to the upper limit for “real” beer.
The previous record for abv % used to be Samichlaus at 14%; but it seems to have been exceeded by American stunt brews.
Most wines are in the 12% – 14% abv range. Sherrys go above 20% (barely) but those are some very special yeasts. Ports cheat by adding white lightning.
That 18% brew noted above from Dogfish must use Sherry yeasts.
For most beers, when they go above 10% start to develop some really weird esters due to the stress on the yeasts at those alcohol levels. Not to mention the over-caramelization due to boiling at those kinds of starting gravities.
(The result of much serious and difficult research *hic*!)
Samichlaus (BTW) is the best-tasting super-gravity beer I’ve tasted. (Including Thomas Hardy and many others.)
I can’t be sure but I think I had a bottle of that on a pub crawl in Quebec city about 20 years ago. Is that likely?
In any case I remember very well that the beer was 14% and that it was definitely yummy.
I used to drink this awful Ice Beer in the 90s that I think was around 12%. Blech.
The trick is not in adding the “white lightening” ; it is in not getting caught while making the “white lightening.”
[Self : projects in impression of “innocence”.]
So blood soup for dinner means the parents don’t like you?
Do they get Game of Thrones in Poland?
That sounds like a blue ribbon pie!
Cooked poultry blood is one of the most delectable things. It’s got to be very fresh, and the chicken or duck has to be very healthy. Then when it’s set out at room temperature, it coagulates properly. If it doesn’t, it’s best to discard it, according to my mother. It’s then cubed and slipped into a bath of hot broth to gently cook, or for a different gastronomic experience, it can be sauteed with a dash of soy sauce, ginger and green onions and perhaps some giblets.
Sorry, but I just can’t myself get used to the idea of eating blood. I never touch blood sausage in the UK, for example.
I know what you mean. It’s an acquired taste, best acquired as a youngster when you eat what Mama cooks! And see, I can’t eat blood sausage either, because my mother didn’t buy or cook that.
(oh, as to the rudimentary instructions above, mother whisked the poultry blood before letting it set; then she cooked it — divine!)
I agree. It’s definitely a shrew.
Considering this was your last day, it may be Hili’s considerate way to remind you that you are ‘shrewed’.
Thank you for the close up of the Poppy seed cans! X
Here in Canada, we get a variety of Polish-made delicacies under the “Krakus” label. Possibly that label is also distributed in the US. Look for the blue and white cans.
Their line includes poppy seed paste. It’s awfully good eaten with a spoon right out of the can, never mind going to all the trouble of turning into a strudel or similar pastry.
Ohhh I’m going to look for that now.
Did you know that bisons were introduced in the “dead zone” around Tchernobyl?
ZONE DWELLERS
Reappeared: Lynx, eagle owl, great white egret, nesting swans, and possibly a bear
Introduced: European bison, Przewalski’s horse
Booming mammals: Badger, beaver, boar, deer, elk, fox, hare, otter, raccoon dog, wolf
Booming birds: Aquatic warbler, azure tit, black grouse, black stork, crane, white-tailed eagle
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4923342.stm
Yes, it is indeed a shrew.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Common_Shrew.jpg
Something I’ve been meaning to ask JAC: I notice in your photos of noms that there’s usually a simple salad at dinner (iceberg lettuce and tomato). What kind of dressing went on that, if any?
Olive oil, vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper and different spices (oregano, basilicum, thyme) mixed well together to form a thick dressing.
If anyone is interested, these are the sausages on display – at least the ones that I could read the name. I converted the prices to US dollars per pound using an exchange rate of 3.17 zloty to the dollar. I use the term hot dog for parowka – which is a hot dog sized sausage. Kabanos is a thin sausage using sheep casing. Swojska is from the Podhale region – southern mountains.
Serdelki drobiowe – fat chicken hot dogs – 1.14
Paryzanki – Parisians – a brand name sausage of some sort – 2.86
Piwna – beer – 2.57
Goralska – highlander – 1.43
Slaska – Silesian – 2.43
Bardzo dobra – very good (literal translation) – 2.57
Biesiadna – an area of western Poland near Bialystok – 2.00
Smakowita – tasty, also a brand name for a Polish food company – 2.29
Kielbaski Francuskie – Small French sausages, kielbaski is a diminutive form of kielbasy (plural) – 2.43
Kabanos Mysliwska – Hunter’s Kabanos probably has venison – 3.86
Slaska grilowa – Silesian grillers – 1.72
Parowkowa Drobiowa – chicken hot dog – 1.29
Parowkowa z wiejskiej spizarni – hot dog from a country pantry – 3.86
Swojska z cielecina – Veal swojska – 3.00
Glogowska z szynki – Glogowska (SE Poland) from ham – 2.86
Staropolskie – Old Polish – 2.43
Zwyczajna – ordinary or common – 2.29
Jalowcowa (on sale) – Jalowcowa is made with juniper berries and smoked with juniper wood – 2.14
Francuska – French – 2.14
Jalowcowa z Soplicowa – Jalowcowa from Soplicowo, a village in lower Silesia – 4.01
Jalowcowa – not sure how it differs from the one on sale – 2.86
Dziadkowa na ruszt – Grandfather’s for grilling – 2.86
Kabanosy (on sale) – Kabanos – 3.29
Kabanosy szlacheckie – Noble kabanos – 3.58
Podwawelska extra – there is no “x” in Polish but the word extra is used. Wawel is the royal castle in Krakow. Pod means under or below – here think of it more as in that area – 2.14
Klasztorna – Monastery as in Cloister – 3.43
Swojska pieczona – Baked swojska – 3.29
Kabanos peperoni – Some Italian influence here – 4.72
Kabanos drobiowy – Chicken kabanos – 2.00
CHERRY PIE: I have never heard of putting walnuts in the crust. If you are willing to share here the recipe (for pie AND crust) I would be most grateful!!!
Using ground nuts in pastry like pie crusts is a feature of Central European baking. I can’t guarantee that it contains a recipe for walnut pie crust, but Lilly Joss Reich’s “The Viennese Pastry Cookbook” has many pastry recipes that include ground nuts. If you like to bake “fancy”, it’s worth tracking down.
Crust:
100 gram ground nuts (walnuts or hazelnuts or almonds)
150 gram flour
100 gram sugar
175 gram butter
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Make a dough and put into the refrigirator
Cherries:
1 kg sour cherries (fresh or frozen)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon (heaped) of potatoe flour
Cook up cherries in a pan (do NOT add water). Remove 100 milligram of juice and mix into it the potatoe flour. Pour the mix into cooking cherries and cook together for 1-2 minutes. Let it cool a bit.
Line a form with 3/4 of the dough, pour cherries on it. Roll out the rest of the dough to make stripes and place them over the cherries.
Bake in 180 C for 35-45 minutes.
Smacznego!
You need to emphasize using sour cherries (aka tart or pie cherries) – wisnie. In the US, you can get fresh wisnie in July around Traverse City, Michigan. Otherwise, you are out of luck. Frozen cherries available in supermarkets are usually sweet Bing cherries (czeresnie). If you use these, you will have a sweet, syrupy mess. You can get wisnie – at a Polish store or mail order – dried or packed in syrup. Not sure how that affects the recipe.
The Michigan cherry crop was destroyed in 2012 by a late freeze and the producers were rushing to Poland to import them. There was a good crop this year.
http://www.businessinsider.com/97-percent-of-michigans-tart-cherries-were-destroyed-by-freak-weather-2012-7
http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/crop-freeze-forces-cherry-republic-to-order-millions-of-cherries-from-poland/
Cherry Republic has four stores in Michigan but you can order from them. They sell a prepared cherry pie filling. They also sell dried wisnie. Cost is $69 for 5 pounds – about 97 zloty per kilo. Not sure how much you need for a pie after rehydrating.
http://www.cherryrepublic.com/
I don’t know how it compares to the Polish variety, but good poppy seed cakes can be had at many small bakeries here in NJ.
They were a frequent appearance at the many childhood visits to my maternal grandmother.
I am sure that is NOT a common shrew – a Eurasian water shrew probably – Neomys fodiens – which can be up to 10cm long. A common Eurasian shrew is smaller – about 7cm & a pygmy shrew is smaller still – about 5cm. Also a common shrew is brown whereas this is black. In addition you were by the river.
I found a dead common shrew on Cromer beach a few weeks ago & put it under a flower pot for insects to clean so I could add the skull to my collection.
Water shrews are venomous of course – pretty rare in mammals.
Read Konrad Lorenz on them, King Solomon’s Ring, as I suggested when we had the ‘shrew chain’ the other week…
PS Malgorzata – keep the skull for me! 🙂
Just out of interest, on average, how long would the cleaning process take?
When I found the shrew, killed by a dog or cat but distasteful to them, there were some Lucilia/Phaenicia greenbottles already on, presumably laying eggs. After a week the tiny shrew body was a mass of maggots with a slimy residue from the skin. After another 3-4 days the skull was clean apart from the poor little thing’s nose 🙁 but that pulled away from the skull easily. By the end of 2 weeks there were a few bones & after removing the flowerpot (I left a gap) all that was left a few days after (& after rain) were some ribs, no thicker than some thread.
Dominic, I’m not a professional mammalogist, but I beg to differ. I do not think it can be a water shrew. The tail is proportionally too short, the underside, while somewhat paler than the back, doesn’t seem to be white or whitish, and the hind toes are short and naked, as far as I can see. Compare this photo:
http://www.hlasek.com/foto/neomys_fodiens_e8380.jpg
and others from the same site:
http://www.hlasek.com/neomys_fodiens.html
I agree it looks blacker than it should be in summer, but the common shrews undergo autumn molting from the end of August to November, so it may already have been sporting its winter coat when the cat got it.
Neither am I!
Hmmmm… still not totally convinced – scale is required & I cannot be bothered to work out the size of the shrew in relation to the tile joint, which is the only sure guide. Next time Jerry, photos from all sides & measurements plus weight!
😉
Ugh cats are pests here in Australia, killing fucking everything from rare birds to even rarer mammals. Human babies. I hate cats.