This thread could not have come at a better time: Last night a friend and I brought a 'big' cottontail home from the mesa--and a 62" Western Diamondback rattler-- 5'2" of rattler!.
I deep fried the rattler and we had it as an appetizer with buffalo wing sauce and bleu cheese dressing--delicious. We couldn't eat the whole thing so I have some meat in the fridge still. We'll probably finish it off tonight.
The rabbit I rubbed with a mixture of scotch, butter, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, sage, salt and lots of cracked black pepper--it's an old scottish recipe--and then baked it.
We washed it all down with my homebrew beer. It was delicious, savory and cost about the price of 2 .22 rounds.!
Well ... not all of it. Dog soup was palatable, I guess, but I remember one time a little ceramic bowl that was going around the table, and from which everyone was taking something out and eating it, finally got to me so I could see what was in it. Live sand crabs, about the size of my thumb nail. The idea was to "crunch" 'em on the first bite, then chew 'em up and swallow. I swear my first thought was, "If that sucker survives the trip down, I've got a problem!" It was the only thing I passed up while in Korea.
I don't know if you tried it, but as far as I'm concerned, ginseng wine tastes like liquid softball field. Yech!
But plenty of kimbop, yakimandu, and battered, deep fried hot peppers (forget the Korean name), along with the requisite Crown Beer, made for a fine weekend.
Dude, that's only eight inches less of rattler than there is of me.