Fried rat. It's what's for lunch.

It wouldn't bother me in the least. I'd prefer dog, I think, more meat.

I kinda wonder if rat tastes anything like squirrel. I used like squirrel meat a bit -- not sure if I'd eat it now, since I've actually hand-fed some squirrels.

As long as it field mice and not the nasty sewer rats, I think I'd be willing to try it.

Dear Revere,
So...what are the public health implications for eating rats, either wild or urban?

Although I'm not Jewish, I do admire the sensibility of the kosher proscriptions for food, and try not to dine too often on "bottom feeders" like shrimp and catfish. I think rats fall into that category, for me.

By the way, rats have to eat something. Were the bird flu chickens disposed of in pits nearby? Were they burned so the rats would have nothing to eat? Are the culled chickens a source of food for these rats?

What have our government agencies done in previous cullings of chickens in the U.S., and how are the carcasses disposed of so that rats or other animals will not be able to get to them?

Love,
Library Lady

Hey Library Lady, one of the most delicious, exquiste tasting foods in the entire universive is the bottom-feeding blue crab. Nothing like a Saturday afternoon in the summer, sitting down outside at the old picnic table, with a continious supply of cold beer and hot, seasoned freshly steamed blue crabs. Everybody has their crab knockers at the ready, knives primed, beer glass full, and salivating in anticipation of those delicious morsels of crab. Its a lot of work to pick those crabs but well worth the effort. Our tradition for those who know nothing of the blue crab (Beautiful Swimmers) is we will show you how to pick a crab, we will help you with the first one and then you are on your own, damn it. Life is too short, and more importantly the crabs might run out. Bottom feeders are delicious and now just a few months away before we feast again!
Now for some odd reason if I substitute the words 'blue crab' and 'crab' for 'rat', and 'steamed' for 'fried', I don't feel quite the same. Of course cold beer goes with just about everything.

Well in the military sometimes you dont ask and you dont tell. In the days of my military career in the far away land of Honduras we hadnt had a food drop in several days and one of the locals said, "We get food, no problem." So they came back fired up a fire, produced chili's, banana's and the local equivalent of apples and then set to skinning something that looked like a small dog but I didnt watch. Out it goes into a hole wrapped in all these condiments and we got about an hour later a smell that made your mouth water.

So we sat and ate. Two helpings in fact. By the time it was all over I was tight bellied and knowing I was going to be heading to the bushes soon. Then the question, "What kind of dog was that". The locals looked back and forth and said, "No dog...Rata".

"Rata?" I said. "What kind of monkey is a Rata?"

They looked at each other and started giggling and the interpreter starts laughing himself. Later on in the afternoon he gave me the big news and I had to think for a minute, fight off the instant revulsion and then remember what we eat in the US and call food. We had rat again that night.

LL: Actually, you have to worry more about things at the top of the food chain since there is bioaccumulation. If you deep fry the rats there should be no problem eating them. The problem, IMO, is in catching and preparing them. They do carry a lot of diseases. I don't think most of us will be eating rats soon. I'm not sure about the other way around, though.

Randy: Did it taste like chicken?

When I was a kid, my brother and I skinned a rattlesnake--we talked about eating it but, since it was 3 days old, decided against it.
Had an uncle, though, who, in his army career, had eaten all sorts of things from insects to whatever indiginous animal life and plant life was available. Said if you are hungry enough, you can eat just about anything. Hmm, I guess so.....

revere so what you are saying is that bottom-feeders get a bad rap? Also I am ashamed of you for advising LL that she shouldn't fear eating deep-fried rat. What about heart disease? Deep fried anything is bad, bad, bad. Perhaps grilled or broiled or roasted. Yum, roasted rat with carrots and red potatoes. Sort of makes you crave that listeria/virus cold cut sub huh? Catching them is not the problem. They sell simple traps that are very effective and have been effective for years and years. I suggest peanut butter as bait. Preparing them might be an issue, if by preparing them you mean 'field dressing' the ugly critters, and then skinning and butchering them. When I was a boy we used to attach squirrel tails to the handlebars of our bikes to impress others about our hunting skills. Not sure if rat tails would actually work if impressing people is your goal.
Rats eat people all the time. Just watch some of those detective shows, true detective shows on TV. They are always finding bodies that have been gnawed on by rats. We humans find that disgusting but its nature's way. Unlike people rats very seldom turn down any source of food. I think I could admire their culinary habits if it wasn't for that nasty hairless tail they carry with them.

pauls: Rats eat debilitated or helpless humans, too, mainly infants and the infirm elderly. Rat bites are not usually a problem for the mobile. Heart disease? I thought that's what Lipitor was for.

Lipitor? Sheesh then we run into Big Pharma ripping us elderly folk off. Better to decline politely when confronted with a steaming pile of deep-fried rat, no matter the temptation.

My grandmother 'served' (to make it sound sweet) rat in WW2. My mom always said it was very tasty.

And they stayed quite plentiful till the end of the war and were of course easy for humans to catch. As my mother came out of it seriously undernourished (to put it delicately) I possibly owe my own existence to the Rat. And to her courage.

If you're worried about what rats eat and how it might affect you, LL, and you appreciate a Levitical diet, I assume you stay well away from pork. Pigs, wild or domestic, will eat nearly anything. They're like rats - and us.

I suspect rat is probably pretty good braised. Maybe with some aromatic veg and spice so if it's gamy it doesn't overwhelm the palate. Chili con rat. Rat bourgogne. Rat paprikash. Whatever.

Long ago when I was a camp counselor in the Sierras, some of the more intrepid staff caught rattlesnakes [I played lifeguard and kept the kids back when necessary]. We cooked several small ones. Skinned and gutted and fried, they tasted a little like chicken, but they were bony, kind of like chicken breast with most of the meat removed.

Pauls lane: you can get a month's supply of atorvastatin [Lipitor] and pravastatin [Pravachol] as generics for $4.00 a month at many big pharmacies.

We used to go to a butcher (who was also Julia Child's butcher, by chance) who had rattlesnake meat in his freezer case (along with a lot of other fairly exotic stuff). Never tried it as it was too expensive for a young academic.

No it tasted like a very light but a little overly chewy trout. The rats down there are swamp rats rather than city types. Not much disease in them I am told because they arent as congested into nasty areas. The serve the same functions as scavengers but there likely arent any accumulated heavy metals and other things in them. No points of source to draw on. Big though. One could give a sheltie a pretty good fight.

For days after the rat killin', they sat around and told stories about the super-rat (swamp) that attacked goats from time to time. Sixty pounder with teeth like a boar hog? I never met one while I was there but I would hear stuff in the night besides insurgents that would make me wonder.

I have had caiman, gators, goat, rat, chicken, fish (I'll tell you about using cyanide on fish in streams sometime) and pig. Their pig down there is very sweet and not this corn fed hog wallow stuff we have here and very likely accumulating everything under the sun. They get big but not as big as a Hogzilla, 300 pounders. The do the piglets at about a year. I now know where the term "bleeding like a stuck pig", comes from.

Dear MRK,
I just love the way you write. Do you have any intention of writing a book? If you haven't thought about it, you should.
Love,
Library Lady