On the domestication of rabbits.

[urbpan]

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.)

Comments

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

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.