Posted on 04/20/2020 8:42:45 AM PDT by C19fan
For many people, rats are unwanted guests in the house. But in China, they can be a delicacy on the dining table. Chinese bamboo rats, a possible coronavirus carrier, have been a sought-after food source in the country for centuries and hailed for their 'nutritional value'. Tens of thousands of farmers raised them, chefs cooked them in dozens of ways and web users celebrated '100 reasons to eat them' - until the pandemic brought the trade to a standstill.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Bamboo rats are a clean source of meat because they’re strictly vegetarian, hence the name bamboo rat, because that’s what it eats mostly.
Bamboo rats can’t be any more dirty than a chicken raise on a modern Frankenstein factory farm.
That’s DreamWorks, not Disney, but the point is taken.
“I’ve unfortunately known some hillbillies that eat ... squirrels.”
Not a hillbilly, but a poor country preacher in the NE, Dad killed squirrels for food.
“Americans don’t really have much moral high ground on this topic.”
I never knew we were immoral.
Louisiana tried marketing nutria to China. China didn't go for it. I suppose bamboo rats are better.
Possum, raccoon, muskrat and squirrels are safe foods,
Ever see what free range chickens eat.
Remember Man and lobster both love to eat lobster fish will eat anything mercury food.
Gotta make something with the bones.
“Chicken of the Gutter.”
They might be more palatable if the were called Badgers instead of rats. Then again if they were called badgers they would be to cute to eat.
I have friends with whom I disagreed on the love vs. lunch division of the animal kingdom. They didn’t like me calling their pet rabbits hasenpfeffer. They were cute bunnies.
Memories of KING RAT (1965).
Venison.
I remember seeing a huge one as a child in Farmington NM back in 1954. It was dead and huge!
Think I read it during my college years after reading “Tai Pan”, and followed the author.
So, selling the rat meat to fellow POWs as some kind of meat, along with ground cockroach paste. Protein calories are protein calories...
I remember the late 1950s when Nutria were promoted in the US as a garage raised fur farm. When the market failed to appear they were released in the wild where they are now a nuisance.
They eat the just born rats raw. Foul culture.
I remember a cafe in Artesia NM owned by a Chinese man back in 1959 that everyone said his kitchen was nasty, but the steaks he served were the best anywhere so he had a good business.
“I remember a cafe in Artesia NM owned by a Chinese man back in 1959 that everyone said his kitchen was nasty, but the steaks he served were the best anywhere so he had a good business.”
Many of those. who escaped from Mao China apparently were good cooks and had nasty kitchen habits.
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