I’m just going to start off by saying the part that I think will be hardest for you to hear. (Trust me, it’s hard for me to type.)
I cooked a bunny on Saturday for dinner.
Now that I’ve said it, I’m going to defend myself and say that it wasn’t a boiled bunny à la Fatal Attraction. (Completely unrelated but super interesting sidenote: On the day that I found out that I didn’t even make first cuts in 7th grade cheerleading tryouts, in other words, THE WORST DAY OF MY ADOLESCENT LIFE, my best friend, her mom, and I went to see Fatal Attraction in the theater. Why we went to see this particular movie I don’t know, it certainly wasn’t a feel-good, pick me up sort of movie–unless you’re talking about the part where Michael Douglas picks up Glenn Close, uh, never mind. I cannot imagine taking an adolescent child to see that movie, but I mostly turned out okay, I’m not scarred for life, though you could make a case against me now that I’ve admitted that I have indeed cooked a bunny.)
So, yes, I cooked a bunny. It’s a long story leading up to the point where Tate brought home a bunny, “took care” of the bunny, and did other things to the bunny to make it into something that resembled normal, grocery store, cook-able meat, but that long story isn’t nearly as interesting as the Fatal Attraction story above. I really kept hoping that Tate would forget all about bringing home a bunny to eat, he’d been talking about it for months and MONTHS and forever.
“People eat rabbit, Jennifer. This isn’t that weird,” Tate tried to convince me. Ooookay.
We were very secretive with the children about the whole cooking a bunny thing. I cooked a recipe from my Anthony Bourdain Les Halles Cookbook
Ella was acting a bit like a FREAKING JERKAZOID that morning, so I had to put Baby Bunny (x3) and Mommy Bunny in time out. I completely forgot about the bunnies and so did Ella until later that evening when she suddenly remembered and asked if she could have them back. She carried her box of bunnies into the living room where in the adjoining kitchen, Tate was taking care of his box of bunnies.
As he did whatever he was doing with his bunnies, Tate overheard Ella talking to her bunnies. “Baby Bunny! You’re alive! You’re alive! I’m so happy you’re alive Baby Bunny! I love you bunnies! I missed you so much!” Ella cheerfully loved on her returned bunnies.
Tate is convinced that I coached Ella to say this and prove my point that eating bunnies is weird, but I most certainly DID NO SUCH THING. And just so you know, the bunny/lapin was actually not bad. Kinda tasted like chicken.
I used to have to eat rabbit a lot when I lived at a Missions Training Camp in Alabama. We were trying to teach people how to raise animals for protein, so they could teach people in 3rd world countries how to do it. Rabbits (and guinea pigs) breed very quickly, so they’re a great sustainable meat source. Consequently we had to eat rabbits and guinea pigs – a lot. The rabbits really did taste like chicken!
Coming from an Italian background I grew up eating bunny and loving it. When I had children we would mostly have it on special occasions like Easter (Gasp!) at my parent’s home. We couldn’t ever tell my daughter what she was eating for the same reason you can’t tell Ella so we ended up calling it “Good Chicken”. She loved it and always asked for it until she was a teenager and her brother spilled the beans. She now claims she has been traumatized for life and can never eat it again. Oh well, the rest of us still like it..:)
saying eating ‘bunny’ is just like ppl saying they ate ‘bambi’ instead of deer, lol. I know you were doing it to prove a point to your man, but I kept laughing all the way thru. Rabbit is tasty – as I have had several friends from Montreal (rabbit is very traditional French Canadian food)- and as your friend above points out, quite a sustainable food. My hubby grew up raising rabbits for 4h and eating or selling (so other ppl could eat ‘em) them at the fair.
I have not ever eaten bunny, at least not that I’m aware of. But I did find out recently that my dad fed me snake and told me it was chicken. I remember loving that chicken ALOT. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have eaten it if he had told me what it was, so its probably a good idea you didn’t tell your daughter.
I ate rabbit in France once. It wasn’t bad but given the choice I would stick with chicken.
We went to a medieval banquet recently and one of the dishes was goat. I don’t recall ever having it before, but it was yummy and I had two serves (which may have been a mistake – LOTS of food!
).
But the other people at the table were weird, and didn’t want to eat goat (thus.. I got two serves…).
I really could not understand them – they ate lamb shanks without problem – this was some sort of ragout, so unidentifiable.
Food is food.
Whahaha… My mom cooked rabbit when I was about 11 and it was DELICIOUS (definitely better than chicken) but chouldn’t eat any herself – said it looked too much like a baby. I was too young to even understand that, net alone link that to a regular genuine baby. I would eat Rabbit again in a heart beat if we had them here in South Africa! Not saying we don’t have rabbit.. we do… just not in the supermarkets.
Bunny and Bambi are YUMMY! lol
LAPINS. LAPINS. Just keep repeating that to yourself.
It’s a wonder any kid can eat chicken after seeing baby chicks. They are SOOO cute. But there they are, all grown up, in their chicken nuggets.
We had rabbit for Easter 2 years ago. This year we had lamb.
Oh my word that is too funny!
Whatever you do though, don’t tell your kids that they ate rabbit now.
I raised rabbits for show when I was a kid and one time our 4H group took a tour of a rabbit farm. And they fed us hot dogs for lunch… and then after we ate they told us they were rabbit dogs.
Worst field trip ever.
My best friend took me to see Fatal Attraction, and I was traumatized by that! Brought it up for years (and we were in college, so it wasn’t like I was too young in years … but I do not like scary movies). I suppose I should be grateful that she’s never fed me bunny!
LOL, that last part had me cracking up.
I’ve never had rabbit, but I’m reading Farm City, and the middle section of the book is about how she raises bunnies…just getting into it. It would be hard to kill a cute little furry creature, wouldn’t it? But I dunno, the domestic ones are way cuter than the wild ones. I bet I could eat a wild rabbit.
I’m new here, by the way. Hi.