Rat (or "Vole" as they refer to it in their English language signs) has been a delicacy in China for many years. I saw them kill, blanch, butcher, and cook one once. Looked *very* tasty. I'm told the haunches are the best part (sort of a meaty "rat ham," if you will). They serve it hacked with the bones intact, just like hacked chicken. The particular dish I saw was a glistening spicy sauce of some kind, and the people eating it really seemed to like it.
First thing I'm going to try when I get there one day. Maybe I'll wait until after the roast duck. If you think rat is so bad, then how can you tolerate lobster? It's nothing more than a giant underwater cockroach. Respectfully, Adam Phillip Churvis Get advanced intensive Master-level training in C# & ASP.NET 2.0 for ColdFusion Developers at ProductivityEnhancement.com -----Original Message----- From: Vivec [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 2:04 PM To: CF-Community Subject: China Feasts on rat infestation. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19852455/ The more wealthy you are...the weirder things you eat...to prove you can afford the exotic. riiiiiight. "Tired of fast food? Well, now you can travel to China and try some "pest food." As the country suffers from a plague of a reported 2 billion rats displaced by a flooded lake, many of the creepy creatures are being trucked from central China to the booming south to end up in fancy restaurant dishes, Chinese media reported. Rats had been doing a roaring trade thanks to strong supply over the last two weeks, the China News Service quoted vendors as saying. "Recently there have been a lot of rats... Guangzhou people are rich and like to eat exotic things, so business is very good," it quoted a vendor as saying, referring to the capital of Guangdong province, where people are reputed to eat anything that moves. Some vendors, who declined to reveal their names, had asked people from a village in Hunan province, near Dongting Lake, to sell them live rats, the Beijing News said Monday. "The buyers offered 6 yuan [79 cents] for a kilogram [2.2 pounds], but as to where they will sell the rats, they would not say," the newspaper quoted a local resident as saying, adding that villagers had to catch the rats alive. Some Guangdong restaurants were promoting "rat banquets," charging 136 yuan ($1 for one kilogram of rat meat, the newspaper said. But the restaurants denied their rats came from Hunan. Local governments in Hunan have been grappling with the rats, which had already destroyed 6,200 square miles of crops and could spread disease, according to media reports. A lack of snakes, also a popular dish in the south, and owls, a traditional Chinese medicine, was held partly responsible. Scientists have also blamed China's massive Three Gorges Dam project and climate change for the Hunan rodents' flight to dry land. " ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Macromedia ColdFusion MX7 Upgrade to MX7 & experience time-saving features, more productivity. http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion?sdid=RVJW Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:238735 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
