Clarence Birdseye proved you can’t judge a book by its cover.
The Brooklyn native and frozen food pioneer looked scholarly in his spectacles, as if he belonged at the head of a college lecture hall.
He was actually a college dropout. And instead of lecturing scholars, he lived a life of adventure in remote areas of the world, from the frigid coast of Newfoundland to the steamy sugarcane plantations of South America.
He craved the outdoors and loved hunting.
MEET THE AMERICAN WHO POPULARIZED CHINESE FOOD IN THE US: IMMIGRANT CHEF JOYCE CHEN
Birdseye, among many other quirks, possessed a voracious appetite for harvesting and eating anything that walked, waddled, chirped, crawled, swam or slithered.
In his years of exploring Labrador, Canada, or working for the U.S. government in the American West, he trapped and cooked mice, chipmunks, porcupine, otter and rattlesnake, to name just a few of his unusual edibles.
