In the middle ages there was a big debate in the Catholic church about whether beavers were fish (nobility hated eating no meat except fish on fridays and were looking for some variety).

It was argued that their tails are scaly like a fish', and of course they live in water. But on the other hand there's all the fur and so on.

So eventually it was decided that beaver tails count as fish, not the whole animal.

This led to it being hunted to local extinction in quite some places.

Beaver is genuinely delicious, and I don't like most game meat. In frontier times it was commonly used as a ready substitute for fatty pork like bacon.

These days you are unlikely to have a chance to try it unless you are friends with a trapper.

The fifth grader in me chuckled.

Not beaver, but muskrat was historically was a Catholic loophole to get around abstinence from meat (and more likely due to food availability).

https://www.detroitcatholic.com/news/the-history-of-detroit-...

clearly slang evolves over time

I have a cousin who is a trapper who says they are delicious.

It is an acquired taste.