Rodents Ravaged My Toffee: A Christmas Candy Crime

I was heartbroken.

I spent all of my free Saturday morning baking and cooking, including an entire hour standing at the stove babying a massive batch of English toffee. A huge, heavy, three-pound batch. Toasted slivered almonds in the bottom layer. Premium dark chocolate melted on top. It came out perfect.

I set it out on our enclosed back porch to cool and harden. I’d be back in five minutes, I told myself. I didn’t even bother to shut the door to the yard.

Then I started making banana muffins and completely forgot about it.

When I finally remembered and raced back outside, I found my beautiful toffee ruthlessly ravaged by some creatures with little claws. Deep gouges in the Ghirardelli chocolate. Nibbled edges. Tiny claw marks everywhere:

My immediate thought: F*cking squirrels!!!!!!!

My second thought: Can I salvage this?

I mean, even Julia Child was purported to have pulled off some sneaky salvage operations. The turkey that slid off the platter and landed on the floor in front of the entire dinner party? She scooped it up and carried it back into the kitchen, telling her guests “Not to worry, I’ll just bring out the other one.” Wink wink.

So, yes, full disclosure, I eyed that mangled mess– that time-intensive, carefully created, probably $50 worth of toffee, intended for gifting to friends and family– and totally planned on using it anyways.

But then, my physician brain kicked in with the worst case health scenario: Wait, can you get rabies from squirrel saliva?

I Googled it. No squirrel vector rabies case has ever been reported in the US, but, squirrels can carry rabies so, technically it’s possible. And rabies is, you know, kinda fatal.

Damn it. What do I do here?

The Medical Consult

This felt like a situation that required expert opinions, so I did what any reasonable doctor would do: I texted my physician friends and posted in my doctor-mom Facebook group, explaining the situation and asking, What would YOU do?

Within minutes, I had multiple responses from ER docs, infectious disease specialists, and even a doctor who does wildlife rehab on the side.

It was quickly established that oral exposure to squirrel saliva poses no real rabies risk, and is not prophylaxed in an emergency room. Regardless, there was a lively debate and quite a lot of comments.

The suggestions ranged from the practical to the absurd:

• “Cut off the eaten bits and serve the rest”
• “Melt off the chocolate and put on a fresh coat”
• “Bake it to kill the bacteria”
• “I’d eat that shit! I wouldn’t give it away just eat the whole damn thing myself”
• “Sprinkle it in your backyard as an offering to the squirrel deity, maybe one day a squirrel will have your back”

But the overwhelming consensus was simple: Toss it.

• “Too gross to eat food that animals were walking and sitting on”
• “All I can think about is hair and poop stuck all over it”
• “I would not eat anything if a rodent had crawled across it and nibbled some [barf emoji]
• “Toss and start over… respectfully, I’m on batch #9 over here right now”
• “This is why I don’t eat at potlucks”

Yeah, the answer was clear. I couldn’t un-see those little claw marks all over. Too gross. Too risky. What if someone got sick? What if—statistical near-impossibility aside—someone actually got rabies?

Still, that tray sat on my counter for way too long while I stared at it wistfully.

All that work. All that premium chocolate. All that time.

After all, that’s what it’s really about. I’m a type A, hyper-productive person and I do the Christmas baking thing once a year. To throw away the fruits of my labor…

A Brief Digression About Bad Squirrel Behavior

As I contemplated my ravaged toffee, I remembered an incident from a few years back when I still worked at Man’s Greatest Hospital downtown. I was walking through Boston Common when I spotted a tourist trying to lure a squirrel closer, clearly hoping for the perfect photo op.

I’ve always marveled at tourists’ enchantment with the common grey squirrel, especially since these creatures are aggressive little jerks with no qualms about jumping onto your park bench and diving into your lunch bag. But then I remember my own behavior in Costa Rica, squealing over trash-raiding coatis: Awww, look how stripy and furry! I have to take a photo! So I get it.

Anyway, this really obvious tourist was holding out a peanut in the shell, trying to coax the squirrel closer, his iPhone out and ready to snap the photo of man and nature in harmony. Right as I walked by, the squirrel lunged forward, grabbed the peanut, and bit his hand.

I know he was bitten because he jumped up holding his hand and swearing. I couldn’t understand a word, but you know swearing when you hear it, regardless of language.

I slowed down. Should I help? Me being a doctor and all? But what the hell was I going to do? It’s not like I carry a first aid kit. I had emergency naloxone on me—after all, you never know when you’ll encounter someone having an opioid overdose, especially when you frequent Park Street Station—but no wound care materials.

I called out: “There’s an emergency room down the street that way if you want to get checked out!”

He glanced over and nodded, more embarrassed than anything. I kept walking.

Now, as I write this, I’m wondering if I should have been more insistent about rabies prophylaxis. Hope he did okay.

The Tragic Epilogue

In the end, I lifted the heavy, caramel-scented mess out of the tray and dumped it in the trash. I had to break it up to make it fit. My heart broke into as many pieces.

When my kids got home, I explained what happened. My daughter listened thoughtfully, then pointed out something I hadn’t considered: “Mom, squirrels can’t eat chocolate. They can’t metabolize the chemicals in it, it’s toxic to them.”

She was right. I looked it up. The theobromine and caffeine in chocolate can cause heart issues, tremors, seizures, and even death in squirrels. (I have no idea how my 13 year old knew this, BTW.)

So now I’m imagining a yard full of twitching, poisoned, dying squirrels in a few days.

I somehow feel even worse about the whole thing now. If that’s possible.

So, no toffee gifts this year. Just guilt, regret, and the faint hope that the squirrel gods will forgive me.