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mhd 7 hours ago [-]
Any reason why they didn't get their own "meat name" then? I thought that the "cow/beef"-"pig/pork" split was due do that, with the initially Norman nobles consuming most of that luxury meat. Thus nothing for "chicken", either. Did "lapin" or something like that get lost?
> the similarity to cunt (and particularly homophony with cunny) led through taboo avoidance both to the word's displacement in the main by rabbit and bunny
vintermann 43 minutes ago [-]
That claim doesn't seem to be sourced. It sounds a little dubious to me.
excannuk 2 hours ago [-]
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sandworm101 2 hours ago [-]
See also "Welsh rabbit" which is even more confusing.
choult 2 hours ago [-]
It's spelled Rarebit, not rabbit
kristianc 3 hours ago [-]
We did get poultry from French poulet
larodi 7 hours ago [-]
Chicken/poultry?
dmurray 6 hours ago [-]
Chicken/pullet seems to have gone the opposite way: pullet (French) is exclusively for the animal but chicken (Germanic) can be either the animal or its meat.
mdurana 6 hours ago [-]
Funnily enough in Switzerland they use "Poulet" to mean exclusively chicken meat.
derriz 8 minutes ago [-]
As a foreigner, “Pouletschenkel und Pommes” makes me smile. A German word sandwiched between two French words - one pronounced the French way (“poolay”) and the other nativized (“pommez”).
shevy-java 5 hours ago [-]
Sounds very french-like in origin. Do all in Switzerland use that though? Even the exclusively german-speaking part? In Austria there is a West-East difference, some words spoken by the Vorarlbergers (most western part) we don't too easily understand in the east (it's quite similar to swiss-german in some ways in the western area, but not identical either).
Leherenn 5 hours ago [-]
Yes, the GP was referring about Swiss German. Not sure if it's used in all the dialects, but at least Züritüütsch uses it.
But you're right it's most likely a much more recent import from French, just like "velo", "merci" and others.
shevy-java 5 hours ago [-]
Is chicken really German though? A hen is called "Huhn" (Das Huhn), and chicken may be more appropriately translated as "Geflügel" (or rather, the latter would be poultry; chicken would be "Huhn" or "Hähnchen"). I don't see the germanic origin insinuated here for the word "chicken", whereas I do so it for "hen" <- "Huhn" quite easily. (And "Geflügel" has "Flügel" which relates more easily to flight/to fly, or better Flügel=wing).
dmurray 5 hours ago [-]
Wiktionary [0] seems pretty confident ("Germanic" includes all of the languages below, not just modern German).
[0] From Middle English chiken (also as chike > English chick), from Old English ċicen, ċycen (“chicken”), of uncertain origin. Possibly from Proto-West Germanic kiukīn (“chicken”), or alternatively from Proto-West Germanic kukkīn, equivalent to cock + -en.
Compare North Frisian schückling (“chicken”), Saterland Frisian Sjuuken (“chicken”), Dutch kuiken (“chick, chicken”), German Low German Küken (“chick”), whence German Küken (“chick”), (elevated, obsolete) German Küchlein (“chick”) and Old Norse kjúklingr (“chicken”).
Orphis 5 hours ago [-]
In the same family of languages (proto-germanic), you'll have Swedish for which the word for the meat is "kyckling" which more pronounced like "chickling".
Modern German might have changed along the way, but if you go back far enough, there should be something. I'm not a linguist or a native speaker of a Proto-Germanic language, so I don't know enough to pinpoint this better.
inglor_cz 4 hours ago [-]
In German, you can also use the word Küken, which is very clearly a cognate of English chicken.
The introduction of rabbits to England post-dates the Norman conquest.
ithkuil 6 hours ago [-]
And the word rabbit comes there from french rabotte which however comes in turn from a Germanic language (dutch) so it doesn't feel quite french.
pdw 7 hours ago [-]
Right, commoners would initially only have known them as exotic burrowing hares.
sandworm101 2 hours ago [-]
I find it hard to believe that the romans didn't bring rabbits with them. Also, given the fullness of time, it is hard to believe that rabbits didn't ever catch a ride with any number of pre-roman visitors.
iand 6 hours ago [-]
This contradicts the article.
shoobiedoo 8 hours ago [-]
I've only eaten rabbit once and it was bathed in garlic butter so I don't really remember it. Besides the "tastes like chicken hehe" stereotype, is there any knock-your-socks-off dish made with rabbit where it's center stage?
cataphract 1 hours ago [-]
Around Lisbon, it's usually stewed with red wine and tomato and spices (coelho à caçador). It can also be fried or grilled but I rarely see it cooked that way.
It's the kind of meat that is, generally speaking, better prepared in more rustic versions as you move inland, though -- see e.g. [1], where it's cooked in clay, together with kidneys, heart, liver, and the head.
Rabbit is a pretty important part of traditional Maltese cuisine, rabbit stew is often considered a national dish, fried rabbit is also fairly common.
First time I heard of rabbit being considered to taste like chicken, they taste nothing alike.
bostik 5 hours ago [-]
Maltese thick rabbit stew (think: ragu) is delicious. And as mentioned in a parallel thread, hare is fairly common in Finland as well.
The meat is gamey and indeed very lean, but when you slow cook it to the point where it falls off the bone... yum. Tends to work better with roasted potatoes than mash.
vidarh 6 hours ago [-]
> First time I heard of rabbit being considered to taste like chicken, they taste nothing alike.
They don't. It's just a reference to the standing joke that any meat that is unfamiliar "tastes like chicken" as a generic way of describing meat taste.
walthamstow 5 hours ago [-]
There is some base to it. Chicken breast and rabbit are both very lean therefore lacking the fat which gives it the distinctive flavor of the animal. All lean meat basically tastes the same.
vidarh 2 hours ago [-]
At least the rabbit I have had tasted nothing like chicken.
telotortium 8 hours ago [-]
Paella is commonly made with rabbit in Spain.
Al-Khwarizmi 7 hours ago [-]
Yes. In fact, the famous ultra-orthodox traditional paella that Valencians stick to has rabbit. But many other variants do as well. In my family we often eat a simpler version from Murcia with no chicken, but more rabbit, called just "rice with rabbit", and IMHO it's even better (https://okdiario.com/recetas/arroz-conejo-murcia-2538513). The best rice you can have without seafood in it :) And I've always liked fishing for the rabbit's liver.
At one of my ancestral villages in Galicia, rabbit empanada is also a thing, and tastes amazing. But it's seen less and less often because it's messy to eat (it's cooked with bones so you have to open the empanada, remove the bones and close it again) so people tend to use fillings without that problem now. (You can cook it without the bones, there are also areas where they do that, but in that specific area they shun that variant).
hanslovsky 3 hours ago [-]
had rabbit paella in a small town outside Valencia. it was so delicious!
felipeerias 7 hours ago [-]
Rabbits are mainly native to the Iberian Peninsula.
masklinn 7 hours ago [-]
The european rabbit (and the domesticated rabbit, which descends from it) is native to the Iberian peninsula. There are ~20 extant species called rabbits all over the world (most though not all leporids outside of Lepus, the true hares).
cowl 7 hours ago [-]
well they are native almost everywhere but according to legend it was named i-spn-ya (Land of the Rabbits) by the Phoenician although some suggest that SPN could also have meant North instead of rabbits so land of the north.
telesilla 7 hours ago [-]
If I recall, the word 'España' or 'Hispania' refers to an old word for 'hyrax', for which rabbit were mistaken for. Could be apocraphyl but it's a nice idea.
setopt 7 hours ago [-]
Within Europe, you mean? A quick Google suggest there were native rabbits also in the Americas, Asia, and Africa.
rinconrex 4 hours ago [-]
Brunswick stew is hearty[0], usually rabbit or squirrel traditionally, but these days with chicken. The Maltese variety as mentioned elsewhere is called Stuffat Tal Fenek as is very nice, having tried it in Malta.
You can coat the rabbit meat with Dijon mustard and cook it to make "Lapin à la moutarde" too!
It's not a knock-your-socks-off dish, I don't think the meat has enough qualities for such a dish (not enough of a distinct taste or texture or quantity), but it's always nice to have!
afishisafish 5 hours ago [-]
Lapin aux pruneaux is a wonderful dish. Serve with salad and mashed potato or french fries
you need an example of what you consider such a dish.
Rabbits are pretty decent, as a kid we used to have quite a few of them at the village (along with all other kind of animals, incl. lambs, pigs, and goats). Either way it's rather easy to tell the meat apart and most meat(s) can be prepared to be delicious.
trklausss 7 hours ago [-]
It's quite common in Spain, in my family we eat that ~6 times a year. Honestly delicious, but I understand why people won't eat it.
a96 7 hours ago [-]
Hare is pretty common game here in Finland and I think I must have eaten that fairly regularly when I was little but I have absolutely no recollection what it actually tasted like.
Only recipe I've seen was indeed a stew where the ingredients were almost "one rabbit, unholy amounts of garlic".
haunter 4 hours ago [-]
My granny in Hungary always cooked it
like your regular chicken soup (consomme) but of course replacing
the chicken with rabbit
It used to be more common in the U.K. but it’s pretty rare now. Stews and braising were the traditional way to cook it as older ones are kind of tough.
b800h 7 hours ago [-]
Hmm. It's made me think about Lièvre à la Royale (Hare à la Royale), but of course Hares are not rabbits (they taste gamier).
The guys from Fallow made a video on YouTube about attempting to make a really good one.
Apparently Lapin à la Moutarde is the classic rabbit dish.
xfq 7 hours ago [-]
I like Sichuan's Zigong 冷吃兔 (cold-eaten rabbit)! Fried rabbit, dried chillies and numbing Sichuan pepper. Unforgettable.
nocoiner 3 hours ago [-]
That sounds amazing.
aappleby 8 hours ago [-]
Confit or cassoulet.
madduci 5 hours ago [-]
In oven with potatoes!
shaolinspirit 7 hours ago [-]
rabbit stew
rustyhancock 7 hours ago [-]
It's says Rabbit was 4-5 times the price of chicken.
That seems a reasonable estimate to me even today.
fooker 7 hours ago [-]
I have lived in many cities across different countries with dramatically varying economies, and the price of chicken has always been a good proxy for the cost of living. And maintains the same ratio to the price of a bus ticket (and similar things).
Rabbit used to be the meat of the poor where I grew up. If you could not afford meat (beef/pork), you could always raise 5 to 10 rabbits in boxes in your garden and feed them with the grass from the road sides.
Sharlin 5 hours ago [-]
Price of chicken dropped steeply (and consumption exploded) in the second half of the 20th century after the introduction of broiler breeds and what’s essentially muscle tissue factories. Before that chicken was neither particularly cheap nor eaten that much.
In the rural UK area where I live farmers will often be happy to have you shoot them with an airgun, if you seek permission. Nice (if stewed) cheap meat.
rustyhancock 1 hours ago [-]
Goodness, I don't imagine a regular airgun is humane for rabbits? The FAC limit is 12ftlb?
We used to use a tight .410 which I think humanely dispatched them but I think an air gun would be much better for the meat.
causesothere 2 hours ago [-]
Farmers in England and Wales have a legal obligation to remove rabbits. You are doing them a favor by volunteering to do so.
justincormack 40 minutes ago [-]
No they don't, legal citation needed if you are going to claim this.
> (2)The occupier of any land in a rabbit clearance area shall take such steps as may from time to time be necessary for the killing or taking of wild rabbits living on or resorting to the land
IIRC all of England and Wales is designated a Rabbit Clearance Area.
handwoven 7 hours ago [-]
Rabbit is comparatively cheap to produce, and available at low price wherever it is produced in larger quantities. Apparently no significant economies of scale where you live.
6 hours ago [-]
modo_mario 5 hours ago [-]
I am curious if anyone here has experience with the best breeds of rabbit for meat that's are also the most easily self sufficient. (Reliable litters, surviving mostly on grass in rabbit tractors)
Essentially the best for self sufficient homesteading.
I wouldn't want the cornish cross equivalent that strugles to propagate without care, needs bags of feed or dies if you look at it funny.
(I have no experience with livestock, there was a story about this on NPR a while back... I wonder what breeds that was... oh, there's another large meat focused bread in the US to consider)
Loughla 3 hours ago [-]
We've raised meat rabbits for years, among other overstock.
Depending on where you live, a New Zealand/California mix is about as good as you can get for meat rabbits. They grow well and aren't overly delicate.
If you live somewhere with wild heat waves, just straight Californias, or some of the custom breeds from Texas A&M would be better to avoid heat deaths.
Also, you can just feed them grass in rabbit tractors, but they won't thrive like if they had access to a more varied diet. That's for all rabbits, not just meat rabbits
KurSix 5 hours ago [-]
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someperson 8 hours ago [-]
Rabbits were a common staple food source in Australia until 1950s when the myxoma virus was released which causes the disease myxomatosis.
NL807 7 hours ago [-]
Rabbits were a depression-era food for Australians and was always considered a poor people's food. Being a pest does give make it popular either, much the same as carp is. Which is a shame, as both make great sources of cheap food.
phillc73 6 hours ago [-]
Growing up in rural Australia I remember eating rabbit as a kid in the late 70s and early 80s. One of my favourite meals was a sweet rabbit curry with rice that Mum used to make. Haven't eaten it in probably close to 40 years and my salivary gland is activated right now as I type this.
lmpdev 8 hours ago [-]
Also our most successful rugby league team’s name was given as a derogatory put down: “Rabbitoh”, which was seen as a poor sales person flogging rabbit meat for money
South Sydney being a poor area, yielded the South Sydney Rabbitohs
KurSix 5 hours ago [-]
Quite a contrast with the story
ButlerianJihad 7 hours ago [-]
Since their introduction for a spot of recreational hunting, European rabbits have had a devastating effect on the ecology of Australia in general. Hence the Rabbit-Proof Fence, and its corresponding novel and film.
> Hence the Rabbit-Proof Fence, and its corresponding novel and film.
You do realise, one hopes, the novel slash film have FA to do with either rabbits or any rabbit related ecological devastation.
The fence served as a navigational aid for a long journey home, had it not existed Daisy, Molly, and Gracie would have had to fall back on the Seven Sisters for directions.
ButlerianJihad 4 hours ago [-]
Interestingly enough, since I was wholly ignorant of much of Australia's history, I only became aware of the rabbit infestation and devastation because I noticed the title of the film. I have neither seen the film, read the novel, nor been to Australia at all. Thanks though.
rectang 6 hours ago [-]
Sadly omitted from this epicurial review: the ill-starred Bunny Burgers fast food franchise.
QI s05e03 “Eating” talked about how Hudson Bay trappers were so fond of eating rabbit that they died! Rabbit is so delicious that they didn’t eat a balanced diet and suffered - fatally - from lack of vitamins etc!!
tybit 7 hours ago [-]
I was surprised to learn that this has a name (or a few)
> Rabbit starvation (also called protein poisoning or mal de caribou)
The body can only digest so much protein and rabbits are so lean there is basically no fat to them outside their organs.
hizlikovboy27 7 hours ago [-]
From Turkey, as far as I can tell, rabbit doesn’t show up much on menus so it seems to vary a lot by region. But if you have a recipe to recommend, I’d love to try it :)
tstrimple 7 hours ago [-]
Recently stumbled across this cooking video featuring chefs trying to recreate Michelin recipes. Lièvre à la Royale (Royal Hare).
Let's just say it didn't make me want to try rabbit any time soon.
delis-thumbs-7e 7 hours ago [-]
The title buries the lead: rabbits executing hunters in the Smithfield Decretal illustrations. Seems British humour has a tradition at least to the 14th Century.
dingdongditchme 7 hours ago [-]
How is that an example of burying the lead? (I presume lede is the correct spelling, but burying lead for others to find in their drinking water amuses me.)
EDIT: saw the picture and yes. That certainly was catchy, but I the hn title is missing the subtitle: "until the black death made them commonplace".
card_zero 6 hours ago [-]
More of a venison issue. Lede evolved from lead to avoid exactly this confusion, sometime last century.
Terr_ 7 hours ago [-]
*lede, since we are already in academic language-and-culture details territory.
Though lede is just a variation of the word lead to get a unique word for the leading section of an article. As long as we all agree that it's pronounced like in leading and not like the metal the difference in spelling doesn't feel significant
throwfaraway135 7 hours ago [-]
Rabbit is very commonplace where I live, but I haven't tried it, it just looks to much like a rodent.
dingdongditchme 7 hours ago [-]
I have tried it in a French restaurant and it was delicious. Just don't think about how cute it would have been to cuddle instead. :-(
vargr616 7 hours ago [-]
i have a very specific recipe passed down in my family, i boil in a mix of water and vinegar for about 20-25 minutes, before roasting it in the oven with potatoes and garlic. That way the specific taste and especially the smell is brought down, but it's otherwise very tasty.
This also works for goat or sheep meat.
pvaldes 7 hours ago [-]
The European rabbit seems to be in fact two different species. In 2026 it was proposed to split it in Iberian rabbit from West Spain and Portugal, and European rabbit from East Spain and the rest of Europe. Both were isolated in the glaciation in opposite coins of Spain and the split is supported by genetic analysis and Iberian has a darker fur. They had barely interbred since 2 million years ago.
So we know now that moving European rabbits for hunting purposes to Portugal, Malaga or Galicia may be a menace for Iberian Rabbit.
USA has the cotton tail rabbits on genus Sylvilagus that was the original carrier of Myxomathosis virus. They live in swamps and forests.
Rabbit is more "lamb" than "chicken" but none of both. It does not have a strong flavor really. Is a common dish in the Mediterranean and is tasty. Its main problems are the splinter bones that can damage a tooth, and its unappealing look in the butcher shop.
Guinea pig should be similar. More fatty maybe. Very popular in South America, but I never ate those.
shevy-java 5 hours ago [-]
The royals owe us money.
ErroneousBosh 7 hours ago [-]
This sounds like absolute horseshit to me.
You're trying to say that rabbits - which breed so rapidly that we actually use the phrase "breeds like rabbits" in just about every language across the planet - were somehow a rare luxury?
Rabbits, that left unchecked will breed like crazy across any grassy-ish space that you have and which can be caught with only slightly more difficulty than for example rocks and fallen branches?
These were a rare luxury, somehow?
Bollocks they were.
defrost 6 hours ago [-]
You realise that rabbits were once so rare in Australia they had to be introduced to salve the British passion for killing small things?
The article claims:
The European rabbit is a common sight in the British countryside today.
Yet it was not always so. They are not native to the British Isles and are one of the most devastating invasive species.
If true, there was a time when they were so rare as to be non existent.
From that time, until at most 1555 when:
... the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner could write that "there are few countries wherein coneys (rabbits) do not breed, but the most plenty of all is in England."
there was an interstitial period of decreasing rarity.
kijin 6 hours ago [-]
Rabbits also happen to be an excellent source of protein for other animals. This helps keep the rabbit population under control in healthy ecosystems.
Unlike Australia, Britain had wolves and foxes for a long time. Not to mention the apex predator, Homo sapiens, who in late medieval and early modern Britain were probably much more eager to hunt and eat rabbits than modern Australians are.
defrost 6 hours ago [-]
> modern Britain were probably much more eager to hunt and eat rabbits than modern Australians are.
Modern as in today or modern as in, say 1940s?
I can state as a fact that here in Australia my father, born 1935 and still alive and within 20 feet as I type, kept his mother and younger siblings alive by snaring, trapping, and shooting rabbits through the WWII years his father was overseas in North Africa and Europe.
Further, the bulk of the non native population in Australia until recently was essentially composed of "modern Britains" who were so eager to hunt rabbits they're insisted on bringing their cursed invasives here.
The root of the issue here was more the sparse numbers of people hunting rabbits and the vastness of the space sans people the rabbits had for expansion.
Not even the dingos and European introduced foxes in Australia had sufficient numbers to make a dent.
Although it has spawned a lot of papers on cat, fox, dingo, rabbit, bilby, quokka population dynamics and predator - prey cycles.
phillc73 5 hours ago [-]
Did you eat them as a kid too? Growing up in rural Australia, I regularly ate rabbit in the late 70s and early 80s. It's been a while since I've had one though.
defrost 5 hours ago [-]
Pretty much - along with fresh and salt water fish, food from the garden, kangaroo, lamb, mutton, sometimes beef, etc - the usual staples ;-)
phillc73 5 hours ago [-]
I remember wild mushrooms, yabbies, eels as well. Prawning with my grandfather in a saltwater lagoon using hand nets and a hurricane lantern.
kijin 5 hours ago [-]
"late medieval and early modern" = some time between the Plague and the industrial revolution.
"modern" = after the industrial revolution, which implies broad availability of farmed meat, leading to a gradual decline of hunting.
Yes, predation is a major factor in rabbit population control. And I'm counting British people as formidable rabbit killers, so I think we're in agreement there.
defrost 5 hours ago [-]
We're more or less in agreement, sure - I'm certain that Australians and Britains were equally eager to eat rabbits (during those times when that was a thing), the substantive difference being very few people in a vast land (AU) versus a mass of people in a pocket square of an island group (UK).
pvaldes 6 hours ago [-]
Scotland at least needs the return to the native European Lynx since long time ago. Sheep are what prevents it, but it could help to put some order in the populations of rabbits, vampire deer, roe deer and red foxes.
mytailorisrich 2 hours ago [-]
And now in the UK you are entitled by law to keep rabbits and hens in your garden. A law inherited from post-WWII rationing.
rantallion 53 minutes ago [-]
Are you referring to the Allotments Act 1950? If so, that doesn't necessarily extend to private gardens. Plenty of places will have byelaws or covenants that prevent the keeping of animals in garden.
mytailorisrich 35 minutes ago [-]
Yes. The Allotments Act 1950 covers everything and is designed to override any covenants or tenancy terms preventing you from keeping rabbits and hens (with caveats about welfare, H&S, and nuisance).
IANAL, but my understanding is that a byelaw may not overrule or contradict statute law, either.
12 Abolition of contractual restrictions on keeping hens and rabbits.
(1) Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in any lease or tenancy or in any covenant, contract or undertaking relating to the use to be made of any land, it shall be lawful for the occupier of any land to keep, otherwise than by way of trade or business, hens or rabbits in any place on the land and to erect or place and maintain such buildings or structures on the land as reasonably necessary for that purpose:
Provided that nothing in this subsection shall authorise any hens or rabbits to be kept in such a place or in such a manner as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance or affect the operation of any enactment.
ViktorRay 7 hours ago [-]
There’s a paywall to the link within the article about the 1363 law regarding clothing.
See also the note at rabbit: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rabbit#English apparently rabbits themselves are all French. "hare is indeed inherited from Proto-Germanic."
Sequels include bun alert: https://m.xkcd.com/1871/
And bun trend: https://m.xkcd.com/1903/
> the similarity to cunt (and particularly homophony with cunny) led through taboo avoidance both to the word's displacement in the main by rabbit and bunny
But you're right it's most likely a much more recent import from French, just like "velo", "merci" and others.
[0] From Middle English chiken (also as chike > English chick), from Old English ċicen, ċycen (“chicken”), of uncertain origin. Possibly from Proto-West Germanic kiukīn (“chicken”), or alternatively from Proto-West Germanic kukkīn, equivalent to cock + -en.
Compare North Frisian schückling (“chicken”), Saterland Frisian Sjuuken (“chicken”), Dutch kuiken (“chick, chicken”), German Low German Küken (“chick”), whence German Küken (“chick”), (elevated, obsolete) German Küchlein (“chick”) and Old Norse kjúklingr (“chicken”).
Modern German might have changed along the way, but if you go back far enough, there should be something. I'm not a linguist or a native speaker of a Proto-Germanic language, so I don't know enough to pinpoint this better.
Know this song? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Yce3AxF9c
Also bonus one: https://youtu.be/miomuSGoPzI?is=IpXvzjGRIswRjUsv
Here is Die Sauerkrauts, presenting the Chicken Dance: https://youtu.be/jJcCwbV5kp8?is=Ug4EqlKjN2o9xjBe
It's the kind of meat that is, generally speaking, better prepared in more rustic versions as you move inland, though -- see e.g. [1], where it's cooked in clay, together with kidneys, heart, liver, and the head.
[1]: https://maps.app.goo.gl/imK78soKt6ruLNZH6
First time I heard of rabbit being considered to taste like chicken, they taste nothing alike.
The meat is gamey and indeed very lean, but when you slow cook it to the point where it falls off the bone... yum. Tends to work better with roasted potatoes than mash.
They don't. It's just a reference to the standing joke that any meat that is unfamiliar "tastes like chicken" as a generic way of describing meat taste.
At one of my ancestral villages in Galicia, rabbit empanada is also a thing, and tastes amazing. But it's seen less and less often because it's messy to eat (it's cooked with bones so you have to open the empanada, remove the bones and close it again) so people tend to use fillings without that problem now. (You can cook it without the bones, there are also areas where they do that, but in that specific area they shun that variant).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunswick_stew
It's not a knock-your-socks-off dish, I don't think the meat has enough qualities for such a dish (not enough of a distinct taste or texture or quantity), but it's always nice to have!
https://bordeauxkitchen.com/rabbit-with-prunes-lapin-aux-pru...
you need an example of what you consider such a dish.
Rabbits are pretty decent, as a kid we used to have quite a few of them at the village (along with all other kind of animals, incl. lambs, pigs, and goats). Either way it's rather easy to tell the meat apart and most meat(s) can be prepared to be delicious.
Only recipe I've seen was indeed a stew where the ingredients were almost "one rabbit, unholy amounts of garlic".
Like this https://streetkitchen.hu/receptek/nyulhusleves
The guys from Fallow made a video on YouTube about attempting to make a really good one.
Apparently Lapin à la Moutarde is the classic rabbit dish.
That seems a reasonable estimate to me even today.
Does this phenomenon have a name?
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruse...
We used to use a tight .410 which I think humanely dispatched them but I think an air gun would be much better for the meat.
> (2)The occupier of any land in a rabbit clearance area shall take such steps as may from time to time be necessary for the killing or taking of wild rabbits living on or resorting to the land
IIRC all of England and Wales is designated a Rabbit Clearance Area.
Essentially the best for self sufficient homesteading. I wouldn't want the cornish cross equivalent that strugles to propagate without care, needs bags of feed or dies if you look at it funny.
The ones in the story might be be Flemish or Continental https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Giant_rabbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Giant_rabbit
Though, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altex_rabbit might be the choice if you're after "grow quick for meat".
(I have no experience with livestock, there was a story about this on NPR a while back... I wonder what breeds that was... oh, there's another large meat focused bread in the US to consider)
Depending on where you live, a New Zealand/California mix is about as good as you can get for meat rabbits. They grow well and aren't overly delicate.
If you live somewhere with wild heat waves, just straight Californias, or some of the custom breeds from Texas A&M would be better to avoid heat deaths.
Also, you can just feed them grass in rabbit tractors, but they won't thrive like if they had access to a more varied diet. That's for all rabbits, not just meat rabbits
South Sydney being a poor area, yielded the South Sydney Rabbitohs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia
You do realise, one hopes, the novel slash film have FA to do with either rabbits or any rabbit related ecological devastation.
The fence served as a navigational aid for a long journey home, had it not existed Daisy, Molly, and Gracie would have had to fall back on the Seven Sisters for directions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F8JN1tlXHo
> Rabbit starvation (also called protein poisoning or mal de caribou)
The body can only digest so much protein and rabbits are so lean there is basically no fat to them outside their organs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJtdtekV7xo
Let's just say it didn't make me want to try rabbit any time soon.
EDIT: saw the picture and yes. That certainly was catchy, but I the hn title is missing the subtitle: "until the black death made them commonplace".
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/bury-the-lede-versu...
This also works for goat or sheep meat.
So we know now that moving European rabbits for hunting purposes to Portugal, Malaga or Galicia may be a menace for Iberian Rabbit.
USA has the cotton tail rabbits on genus Sylvilagus that was the original carrier of Myxomathosis virus. They live in swamps and forests.
Rabbit is more "lamb" than "chicken" but none of both. It does not have a strong flavor really. Is a common dish in the Mediterranean and is tasty. Its main problems are the splinter bones that can damage a tooth, and its unappealing look in the butcher shop.
Guinea pig should be similar. More fatty maybe. Very popular in South America, but I never ate those.
You're trying to say that rabbits - which breed so rapidly that we actually use the phrase "breeds like rabbits" in just about every language across the planet - were somehow a rare luxury?
Rabbits, that left unchecked will breed like crazy across any grassy-ish space that you have and which can be caught with only slightly more difficulty than for example rocks and fallen branches?
These were a rare luxury, somehow?
Bollocks they were.
The article claims:
If true, there was a time when they were so rare as to be non existent.From that time, until at most 1555 when:
there was an interstitial period of decreasing rarity.Unlike Australia, Britain had wolves and foxes for a long time. Not to mention the apex predator, Homo sapiens, who in late medieval and early modern Britain were probably much more eager to hunt and eat rabbits than modern Australians are.
Modern as in today or modern as in, say 1940s?
I can state as a fact that here in Australia my father, born 1935 and still alive and within 20 feet as I type, kept his mother and younger siblings alive by snaring, trapping, and shooting rabbits through the WWII years his father was overseas in North Africa and Europe.
Further, the bulk of the non native population in Australia until recently was essentially composed of "modern Britains" who were so eager to hunt rabbits they're insisted on bringing their cursed invasives here.
The root of the issue here was more the sparse numbers of people hunting rabbits and the vastness of the space sans people the rabbits had for expansion.
Not even the dingos and European introduced foxes in Australia had sufficient numbers to make a dent.
Although it has spawned a lot of papers on cat, fox, dingo, rabbit, bilby, quokka population dynamics and predator - prey cycles.
"modern" = after the industrial revolution, which implies broad availability of farmed meat, leading to a gradual decline of hunting.
Yes, predation is a major factor in rabbit population control. And I'm counting British people as formidable rabbit killers, so I think we're in agreement there.
12 Abolition of contractual restrictions on keeping hens and rabbits.
(1) Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in any lease or tenancy or in any covenant, contract or undertaking relating to the use to be made of any land, it shall be lawful for the occupier of any land to keep, otherwise than by way of trade or business, hens or rabbits in any place on the land and to erect or place and maintain such buildings or structures on the land as reasonably necessary for that purpose:
Provided that nothing in this subsection shall authorise any hens or rabbits to be kept in such a place or in such a manner as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance or affect the operation of any enactment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_Concerning_Diet_and_Ap...
Above is a Wikipedia article about that law. And here is a direct link to the text of that 1363 law:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000017915496&seq=...