Edible Animals

[ysabetwordsmith]

My inner teenage boy was deeply amused by this billboard showing a spectrum of pets to food animals.

Me, I'm a pragmatist.  Anything I can get into my mouth and digest safely is potential food.  In practice, I strongly prefer not to eat other sapient beings unless I am starving to death, so things like cetacean, elephant, and primate are off my list of edibles outside of that context.  There are a few things I choose not to eat because I disapprove of their production methods; farmed veal exceeds my personal tolerance for animal abuse.  However, historic veal is in the same class as buckling for me -- used to be, all the milk animals would drop about 50% male offspring that you didn't need, so you dressed them out right then and had the tenderest meat ever.  That I would gleefully eat if I had the chance.  There are plenty of things I'd like to try, haven't encountered yet, and probably wouldn't want to eat routinely; dog and horse are both in that category.  So are insects, a key indicator that I am not culturally an American despite living here.  My everyday category is wider too: rabbit, goat, and lamb are all things I actively look for and order when I find them.  I also enjoy some animal parts that most Americans do not, including tongue, brains, heart, gizzard, and testicles.  I loved haggis the one time I got it.  However, I have tried kidney and wasn't fond of it; I really dislike liver and would have to be ravenous to eat it willingly.

These are all things that vary widely by culture and time period.  What are some of your settings?

Comments

[gingicat]

I put dog, octopus, and pig in the “too sapient to eat” category.

(Cats, too, but I understand they’re not actually edible.)

I would certainly eat rabbit or guinea pig if they were kosher and widely available. (However, since I don’t like duck, I might find I also don’t like rabbit.)

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Rabbit isn't a lot like duck, although wild rabbit is more like duck than it is like chicken, which cage-raised rabbit somewhat resembles. I find rabbit closer to turkey myself. I like all of those.

Frog is nothing at all like chicken, I don't know why people compare them. Neither is alligator, although frog and gator are similar to each other. Both are more like fish than like chicken.

Re: Well ...

[gingicat]

Well, if we’re getting into taste, I prefer my meat thoroughly deboned. That lets out frog, whole fish, squab, etc.

(And, sadly, I have a massive aversion to scaled-and-finned fish, even in very-fresh-and-raw form. This did not use to be the case. It’s a pregnancy-related aversion that never went away.)

[technoshaman]

Second octopus and cat for "too sapient to eat". Pigs.... dangit, PIG MEAT. But not the little potbellies. Those are pets. There's a pair of them - Basil and Borage - at my favourite OMG-this-is-multiple-benjamins-and-SO-WORTH-IT restaurant, out back; they're the ... compost processors. And they love it when the patrons come and feed them the kitchen scraps (which are had from underneath the counter at the coat check, between courses)...

Duck and rabbit are both very greasy. I've had excellent duck, done rather slowly on a charcoal grill... slow enough for the excess fat to drip out and thus smoke the duck... I wasn't really super impressed with rabbit, but if I had to choose between rabbit stew or taters again for the fourth time, Thumper's getting a load of #6 from Old Betsy.

Agreed on frog. More towards duck than anything, but more tender. And not much of it.

I always thought gator was more towards chicken or turkey m'self. Loves me some gator tail.

As for kosher animals: Outside of the usual menu, venison and elk are both yummy... for as big an animal as it is, elk is quite delicate. Oh, and goat is yummy too. Our motorcycle gang foodie group with a motorcycle problem roasts one every June and has a big shindig... NOM.

[gingicat]

Goat is delicious when tender.