urbpan | On the domestication of rabbits.

One of my greatest fascinations is with the history of the development of domestic animals (and the natural history of these animals.) A few moments ago, quite by accident, I discovered this (emphasis mine):

Credit for the actual domestication of rabbits goes to the early French Catholic monks. Because they lived in seclusion, the monks appreciated an easily obtainable meat supply. Their need to find a food suitable for Lent caused them to fall back on an item much loved by the Romans - unborn or newly born rabbits, which are called “Laurices.” (Laurice was officially classified as “fish” in 600 A.D. by Pope Gregory I, and thus permissible during Lent.) This strange taste, combined with the need to keep rabbits within the monastery walls, created the conditions that led to proper domestication and the inevitable selection of breeding stock for various characteristics and traits.

From the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website.

(On a related tangent, I read some time ago that capybara is (was?) eaten during lent in South America, because it was considered to be "fish". But I hadn't heard about fetal rabbits.)

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I...I think I just threw up...a little bit...

I've probably mentioned this before, but my friend Jerry lived in the boonies of Brazil for two years, during which time, he ate capybara at least once. He claims it's the best meat he's ever had, and this is from a man who could be the poster child for meat.

I think I've seen references to eating Laurices before, but I had no idea what it was.

It is said that Pope Gregory I authorized the consumption of laurices during Lent and other fasts, declaring them to be a marine species, like fish or shellfish (perhaps because they were harvested from the "amniotic sea".[citation needed] For this reason there was a great burgeoning of cuniculture in monasteries during the early middle ages.[6]. The demand would have been high, considering that the ecclesiastical calendar of the time specified more than 180 fast days which religionists had to observe. The economics of cuniculture are also thought well suited to the monastic setting.[7]

oh yeah, they "live in water" wtf?

ew. i don't know why that grosses me out so much. eating fetal anything just seems nasty.

I once read that the hippopotamus was officially categorized as a fish in at least some (Muslim) communities in East Africa.

Regular mammals need to be slaughtered according to dhabiĥa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhabi%C4%A5a

Fish don't.

I imagine trying to slaughter a hippopotamus with a single bleeding cut is next to impossible.

This whole discussion has reminded me of my generalized feelings that meat is gross... I'm not a vegetarian, but I follow a plant-based diet, in part because thinking hard about where meat comes from grosses me out.

Of course, if you think fetal rabbits are yucky, how about Velveeta?

I'm not a vegetarian, but I follow a plant-based diet

This statement fascinates me. Do you mean, you base you diet on plant foods, but do not entirely exclude meat?

The more I think about it, the less I find fetal rabbits yucky. I keep wondering how they were prepared. If I had to have them, I'd like them deep-fried.

Animal body fluids that are coagulated and infected with bacteria and/or fungi into delicious cheeses are some of my favorite foods, personally. (Most of my favorite foods involve the work of bacteria and fungi.) As a lacto-ovo vegetarian I eat some of the yuckiest-sounding foods imaginable. Meat sounds wholesome, if you think too much about eggs.

There you go.

Velveeta is fetal cheese.

The mystery solved!

The capybara thing was pretty nice of them, actually--if you're living in inland South America, fish for Lent could be pretty tricky to come by. Capybara was right there and aquatic, so I always thought that was the Vatican bowing to neccessity to make people's lives easier.

Now that's all kinds of weird nifty info.

I'm pretty sure I don't want to eat a fetal rabbit. But I do love rabbit. Sorry vegetarians.
When I lived in Arkansas, it was one of the animals raised for the meat market. Arkansas is one of the leading producers of chicken, and in Southern culture, rabbit is eaten, along with squirrel. Many subsistence homesteaders and pioneers kept rabbits, and hunted squirrels, which, after the introduction of the European squirrel to N. America, became rampant, and were easier to hunt than deer.
If you look in the Joy of Cooking, you'll find recipies for both rabbit and squirrel.
Hope this doesn't gross to many folks out...

Actually, one very good indicator of whether a given copy of The Joy of Cooking is 'too new' (the original authors' kids went through and did a hackjob edit, taking out everything that was fine and lovely about it and putting in weird yuppified recipes with ungettable ingredients) is to flip to the index and see if it has the whalemeat recipe in the Wild Game section.

No whale? Too new. :->

That's funny! Now I know to look for an older edition to buy. I used to have the 1970s edition.

I wonder what you could use for a good substitute for whale meat...?

How long ago was it, that you could go to the butchers and get a couple pounds of whale meat?

Was all whale meat more or less the same, or was there a preference for one kind over another (oh, heavens, no--never use pilot whale!)?

In Futurama, have they simply come full circle, with their cans of "tuna safe dolphin"?

Fetus!rabbits as fish? Wow.

That makes me think of when people hear that I'm vegetarian and then say, "But you eat chicken and fish, don't you?"

I used to get that all the time when I was vegetarian, and then when I was vegan for two years, they almost insisted that I HAD to eat some form of meat!

I first read the title as "On the domestication of rabbis."

Silly rabbi--kicks are for trids!

ugh...

I don't remember Father Tom ever saying anything about that in CCD.

LOL

They must skip all the interesting parts...

I don't know which is wierder that people ate neonatal rabbits or that the pope declared that they were fish. I just love shit like this.

Well, ya know I don't eat rabbit; I have way too many friends who are rabbits. And guinea pigs. Which were also first domesticated as meat rather than pets, and are still eaten in parts of South America. But, even though I would *never* eat them myself, I can see the case for, if one allows for eating meat at all, eating those particular animals. It takes far fewer pounds of plant food to produce an edible portion of rabbit or guinea pig than of cow or pork. The environmental impact is much smaller, and the animals' waste products are directly usable immediately as fertilizer for growing food plants. They can be raised even in apartments; poor people in cities who would have no chance whatsoever of raising cattle, goats, or sheep can raise a herd of guinea pigs or rabbits adequate to give their family meat at least once a week every week, right in the city.

And then, all that said, thinking that if we allow meat at all, we must grant the usefulness of rabbits and guinea pigs (which are really just very tiny capybaras, after all), that is the sort of reasoning which makes me think that I really have got to go veggie one of these days soon. I don't eat MUCH mammal as is, but I eat some, and then have to feel a bit guilty because any case I can make for NOT eating rabbit could be extended to cow as well.

It's a dilemma, all right.

On the domestication of rabbits.

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More explanation, this time from Wikipedia:

Re: More explanation, this time from Wikipedia:

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Ugh.

Re: Ugh.

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Hmm...

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questions that come to mind

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Comment from the one person I work with who I can talk to about this sort of thing:

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