I get why everyone is disgusted by the sound of eating coons. In terms of smell, I'm right there with y'all. I cannot stand the smell of coons.

But the meat and fat don't smell or taste anything like the outside of those animals. Once you get the legs off and clean them up on a cutting board, you'll feel a whole lot better looking at a nice clean piece of meat.

Now, I haven't just rendered the fat yet myself, but I have cooked the legs with all of the fat left on there, and it was great. You have to get away from envisioning your fleshing beam and fleshing coons. That's what's getting you.

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My grandmother would make coon dressing,it was very good.
I fried some young coon one time, I thought it was rabbit that I had in the freezer, fried it and took it to work.
One of my friends sat down to eat lunch with me, said that was some really good rabbit, I thought so my self.
Then digging around in the freezer one day , I found the rabbit, so I give fried coon a thumbs up.

Now if your really brave. Try render some like they do seal and whale oil here, rotted down instead of cooked. Bon apatite

i cook mine down the same time im fleshing so its fresh if you leave bacon on the counter until it starts to rot before you cook it its going to smell bad to theres a reason some trappers get poor prices for their fur or even end up throwing it away

if my dad or i catch any coons aound moose or deer season in our coyote traps the legs are saved and than taken too the hunting camp for a meal never any leftovers

That's a fact Danny. My dad used to boil coon carcasses on the wood stove in the fur shed. We'd boil them till the meat fell off the bones and then pick out the bones and add the meat and broth to cheap bulk dogfood and make kind of a mush or gruel. The hounds couldn't get enough of it. When they smelled coon boiling they wouldn't shut up till feed time.