Since this isn’t my area of expertise, I was interested to see if any other historians would weigh in on this before I posted my response.
Rebecca the raccoon, as you stated in your question, was intended to be eaten at Thanksgiving in 1926, but the Coolidge famously “pardoned” the animal and adopted it as a pet.
Raccoon does not appear to have been commonly consumed by members of the “high society” of the United States, but it was not unknown as a source of protein, either. While it was an additional source of meat for rural and southern Americans, it did appear in some northern United States meat markets during the 19th century. It appears to have lost some popularity due to the its perception as a slave dish. A recipe for raccoon appeared as late as the 1931 edition of the Joy of Cooking, but appears to have been removed in subsequent years. This source has a picture of the recipe. I was unable to find a .pdf online of the entire book.
As for when did eating raccoon go out of fashion…it didn’t. It was likely always a niche protein source, and in the American south, it is still consumed, to a small extent. Gillett, a small town in Arkansas, hosts an annual “Raccoon Supper” where hundreds of raccoons are prepared and eaten for charity.
Perhaps the most famous Americans known to have eaten raccoon are Mark Twain and former President Bill Clinton.
Interestingly enough, in the 1920s, raccoon fur coats were also popular and considered stylish.
If you are interested in the evolution of American Cuisine in general, I would recommend Paul Freedman’s American Cuisine: How It Got This Way, which also includes a traditional recipe for raccoon.
In short, the answer to your question is no. Raccoons were not eaten among high society, either in the 1920’s or at any point during the 1900’s. It is also unlikely that raccoons were fancy food in American culture during the 19th century.
This is why President Calvin Coolidge felt uncomfortable eating Rebecca the Raccoon for Thanksgiving dinner in 1926. He was playfully ridiculed by at least one newspaper for having cosmopolitan tastes and pardoning the Thanksgiving mammal. The raccoon was originally sent to The White House by Vinnie Joyce from Nitta Yuma, Mississippi, a still unincorporated community along the Mississippi River. Rebecca Raccoon was then adopted by second lady Grace Coolidge and kept lovingly for several years. She was a wild animal (the raccoon, not the first lady), supposedly bit the President, and did not enjoy large meetings, the Easter Egg Roll in 1927 for example. After the Cooledges’ left in 1929, Rebecca was sent to the Rock Creek Zoo in DC where she died shortly after. When Herbert Hoover took office in early 1929, Billy Possum claimed squatter’s rights on Rebecca’s prior home. He was shortly apprehended by Officer B. B. Snodgrass before being granted permission to live in Rebecca’s prior home for the rest of his life with few changes.
But it is worth noting that Rebecca Raccoon was sent to the White House with the intention of accompanying the Thanksgiving turkey (Or even replacing the turkey). Raccoons were eaten extensively during the 1800’s to the point that Mark Twain wrote about “possum” and “coon” as being one of the true American meals he missed on his tour of Europe. They were, and still are, classified small game within hunting laws, and are sometimes given special considerations as to handling or hunting. There were mentions of them being cooked in a traditional African style by many black communities and raccoons were widely eaten throughout Native American societies prior to European settlement by being hunted rather than farmed. Further, there are only a few examples of raccoons being farmed, namely in the 1920’s. However, this was mainly for fur specifically for raccoon fur coats, rather than for meat, and there have been no industrial attempts to farm raccoons in the US since then. Quite simply, the history of raccoons as a food source is the history of hunting in the US, and specifically of small game hunting within the United States.
Part 1
Edit: Hoover came to the White house in 1929 not 1927
