Here's a culinary main course that will change your life for the better - well, let's just say it will change your life.

I'm not talking about wild mushroom and veal terrine with roasted yellow pepper coulis or baked bay oysters with spinach fennel puree and crisp fried shallots. You can order that stuff at any of the finer restaurants in the Sandhills.

What I am talking about - and what we don't get enough of around here - is muskrat. That's right, marsh rabbit (Ondatra zibethicus).

Where I grew up - that would be the Eastern Shore of Maryland - muskrat was a staple for green-thinking folks who wanted to eat fresh, local and seasonal, and when we went to the seafood market, the dark, oily skinned bodies of muskrats hung from the ceiling above the iced-down crabs and rockfish.

Even though we here would have to have the little aquatic rodents shipped in, a few muskrats might be just what the doctor ordered. They're prolific breeders and for hundreds of years they've given up their skins to be dyed and pieced into fancy 23-skidoo fur coats. And while you're collecting the skins, you can eat the carcasses. Everyone I know prefers muskrat to possum, which is way too greasy.

Muskrats have been on my mind because last week I attended a family reunion - or as we are wont to call it, "The Muskrat Reunion," so named because everyone is required to renew his or her Eastern Shore credentials by consuming a pile of fresh-baked muskrat. If you don't clean your plate, everyone assumes you've forsaken your roots and become a denizen of the western shore, which constitutes the remainder of the known world.

I know what you're thinking: I wouldn't touch muskrat with a 10-foot fork. The trick to savoring muskrat is to get over the "rat" part of the word. Then you have to get over the "musk" part. Once you've done that, your mind will be right, and you can stuff some marsh rabbit in your face and start chewing (it can be a little stringy).

If you're Roman Catholic, check with your priest. Many archdioceses allow a dispensation for consuming muskrat on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent. The Church considers muskrat the equivalent of fish, although I can't imagine why.

All right, I've convinced you to try muskrat. You'll have many excellent recipes to choose from. To paraphrase Bubba in "Forrest Gump," you've got your fried muskrat, roasted muskrat, broiled muskrat, muskrat meatloaf, baked stuffed muskrat with carrots, spicy muskrat barbecue, smothered muskrat and onions, muskrat roasted in tomato sauce, muskrat stew, cream muskrat casserole or my family's favorite - muskrat baked all to hell.

Here's our secret recipe: Get -yourself about 10 fresh muskrat -carcasses and soak them in salted water overnight. Cut the muskrat into chunks about the size of a baby's fist and line the bottom of an outsized baking pan with a layer of onions. Place a layer of muskrat over the onions and then apply a layer of bacon.

Repeat this until you've used up about 40 pounds of bacon and 50 large onions (you'll want the last layer to be bacon) and then sprinkle flour over the whole mess. Place the baking pan in an oven preheated to 800 degrees and bake for 10 days.

Remove the baked muskrat from the oven and allow it to cool in a yellow bowl for a week or two. Reheat, put on the Captain and Tennille's recording of "Muskrat Love" and serve up the muskrat with beaten biscuits (they're 50 percent lard and 50 percent flour and beaten with a baseball bat 500 times - you'll find the recipe online), stewed tomatoes, rutabaga and a can of cold National Bohemian. (You might want to make sure your cardiologist is on call.)

Ummmmm ... it doesn't get any better than that.

And here's the best part: You can use muskrat ribs as toothpicks.

Stephen Smith lives in Southern Pines. Contact him at travisses@hotmail.com.