The Wild Southern Tradition That Started With A Made-Up Story

Squirrels live almost everywhere in the United States, terrorizing bird feeders and darting across roads with reckless abandon. They are self-sustaining, free range, and organic. Until 1997, “The Joy of Cooking,” quintessential cookbook that it is, included recipes for preparing them. Given their plentiful nature and mild flavor, they were once a staple. During the Great Depression, a young Arkansas boy named Cecil Redditt would head into the woods near a section of the White River, walk five miles to a logging camp, shoot squirrels along the way, and sell the squirrels to the loggers. On the way out, he’d shoot more squirrels to feed his family and then use the money to buy shells for the next day. 

By the time I met Cecil, I was a young man with decidedly more advantages, including the houseboat on land my parents purchased in the unincorporated area of Aberdeen, Arkansas. For us, it was a weekend getaway for hunting and fishing. Cecil, on the other hand, lived there. And like generations of men before and since, he loved telling tales. Maybe it was five miles, maybe it was really just two. The important part wasn’t the veracity of the details, but the storytelling ability. The same is true for Joe Wilson, founder of the World Champion Squirrel Cook-Off, an annual event in Northwest Arkansas, one born not from an exaggeration, but a lie. 

I’ve heard several variations of the cook-off’s origin story. The first through line through all of them is that he’s a character. The second is that when television producers meet him, they start to get ideas about how to get him on the screen. In the first telling I heard, the producers wanted to him to discuss living off the grid and prepping, two things which he very much does not do. But instead of rebuffing them for their ignorance about what people in Arkansas are actually like, he decided to have a little fun, so he invited them to the World Champion Squirrel Cook-Off. 

The only problem was there was no such thing as the World Champion Squirrel Cook-Off, so he had to will it into existence. He had three weeks. Naturally, he succeeded, in no small part due to the credulous TV producers. Fellow Southerners would’ve spotted the tall tale before he had a chance to get it off the ground.

As of Sept. 12, 2026, though, the cook-off has been around for 15 years, growing from a smaller gathering held on the Bentonville square to one held at the J.B. and Johnelle Hunt Family Ozarks Nature Highlands Center, an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission facility in Springdale.

On Saturday, we welcomed 27 teams and somewhere north of 5,600 attendees. Those attendees came not just from the United States, though there were visitors from 15 states. At least one bloke from across the pond was there as well. That’s a whole mess of people coming together for a chance to try some chili and gumbo made from limb chicken.

They come knowing that not everyone gets to sample the competition dishes, which are reserved for the judges. Some teams make extra for those crowds; some don’t. Some people show up and cook other wild game just for the love of the game. Over the years, everything from raccoon to bear to beaver to groundhog have been available for anyone willing to try. For the less adventurous, volunteers whip up plates of fried catfish and chicken tacos. 

The main competition is just there to complete the lie. The real reason for the event, and for its continued success, is because of Wilson’s belief that “we need bigger tables and smaller fences.” And the squirrel cook-off is all about bigger tables and smaller fences, particularly as there are no tickets required for entry into the facility, for samples, for catfish, or for tacos, hence the fact that thousands of people show up knowing they’ll never get a bite of squirrel bacon ranch pizza or squirrel birria. 

Anyone can try the world’s hottest squirrel, though, assuming they want more than a bite. The entrants into that contest scoffed when I made them fill out a waiver, even if it took me a few hours to round up 10 people willing to put their pain receptors on the line. After the contest, when the winners and losers were busy pouring water onto themselves and, to put it delicately, ensuring they weren’t going to actually digest any of that hot squirrel, the waiver didn’t seem so crazy. Perhaps including chocolate primotalii pepper in the final sauce was a little much, but doing things halfway isn’t Wilson’s style, as evidenced by the other big side competition of the day.

The newly christened Clifton Jackson Squirrel Skinning Competition, named after a biologist with Arkansas Game and Fish who has been instrumental to the cook-off and won the first four cleaning competitions, required a little magic and a little pageantry. See, Clifton lives in Little Rock and had a funeral to attend Saturday morning, but Wilson couldn’t let him miss the event that was being renamed in his honor, so he put out the call. 

When Andy Griffith exhorted Aunt Bea to call the man, he was highlighting an important thing about community and knowing who to contact when you need to make things happen. In this case, the man was a friend of the cook-off and the podcast who arranged a helicopter to bring Clifton from Little Rock to the Springdale. The pilot did a flyover before landing in a nearby field so Clifton could be driven in to attend the naming ceremony and defend his title. 

He came in second, but no matter. The trophies were busts of Clifton, and he sees himself in the mirror every morning. He congratulated the winner, smiled, and gave interviews, grabbing his prize on his way out but forgetting the large bust Wilson had made for him. It’ll decorate the podcast studio until such time as he decides to claim it. 

First place for the actual cook-off went to a crew from my hometown of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who made squirrel gumbo. It was delicious. Being a small animal without a preponderance of heft, squirrel is best served in dishes where the meat has a chance to fall off the bone. (Wilson’s preferred preparation is a confit.) 

Not a bad day for an event that sprung from a lie Joe told the Travel Channel when its representatives came calling about an episode of “Bizarre Foods” — another version of the story — one hinged on their stereotypes about Southerners. Joe could have been honest. He could’ve gotten upset. He could’ve written it off. A not-so-secret fact about him is that he’s not a native, but originally from California, albeit rural California. He may love Arkansas and call it home, but his dog in this hunt is an adopted one. 

It may be 2026, but perceptions about the South persist. The reality is that most of us in Arkansas, particularly the northwest corner, are more likely to go to a restaurant or Walmart for our dinner rather than heading into the woods. Squirrel isn’t usually what’s for dinner. Joe could have educated the TV folks about that. He may be the official redneck of Northwest Arkansas, but he practices the small fence-big table ethos he preaches, even if he tells some lies from time to time.

And, in the words of George Costanza, it’s not a lie if you believe it. George’s goals may have often been ignoble, whereas Joe’s are more about lifting people up, but the important thing is he did believe his lie and in turn make it a truth. That the people who believed the lie had no idea just how much they were underestimating our region is immaterial. We’re accustomed to being underestimated, except when it comes to the size of our tables.

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Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin’ Up a Story podcast, which you can listen to here. You can also follow him on X: @rcromwell4.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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