Kind of glad now that I never saw Fatal Attraction

[slipjig3]

So I found myself on a bus this evening, soaked to the skin and carrying two dead rabbits in a bag. Or as we call it around here, "Thursday."

The soaked part of that is easy enough to explain, especially to those of you in the Northeast: I got trapped outdoors in that gorgeous torrential downpour, having just exited the Davis Square T stop. (I was on the phone at the time with fiddle_dragon, who got to hear my insightful commentary on the topic, which sounded a lot like, "ACK! PTHTH! GAHH!") The contents of the bag, in turn, explain the Davis Square part of it, as I was there to pop into McKinnon's Meat Market to get some rabbit for slow braising this weekend. The beasties had been butchered, cleaned and frozen, but were otherwise whole—not so whole as to be staring at you, but whole enough that you could reasonably determine what they were, if not who.

The thing is, at some point during my travels I realized that despite my statements to the contrary to various parties, this was a weird situation to be in. I mean, yes, meat is meat, a dead animal is a dead animal, and the decision to be carnivorous over supper tonight means some critter is going to die one way or the other. But whereas I could have been toting some hamburger or pork chops or even whole quail without a blink of an eye, having the plastic-wrapped frozen rabbits sitting next to me at the Chipotle where I waited out the rainstorm made me a bit crawly. On the 71 bus home I sat next to a well-dressed businesswoman with a Kindle, and while I did not speak I could not stop from thinking loudly at her, "DON'T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVEMENTS, FOR I HAVE TWO RABBIT CORPSES IN A SACK BETWEEN MY FEET THIS VERY MINUTE." Not terribly neighborly.

Beyond that, I'm trying to get past the spiritual angle as well. I've eaten rabbit on several occasions in my life, and I find it tasty. But I identify very strongly with rabbits as many of you know, and although that's been a back-of-my-brain thing since my early teens it's only relatively recently that it's expanded to a Part of My Identity thing. I haven't eaten rabbit since that aspect of me kicked in, and I've never cooked it myself, so I have this annoying little sense of something cannibalistic and horrifying in the wings. As felisdemens put it, "You eat your own!" It's not anything soul-crushing, but I'm finding myself surprisingly conflicted. Am I selling myself out as a result of too many episodes of Top Chef and Charlie Trotter cookbooks?

Still, I'm sure we'll proceed as planned, and I'm sure it'll be delicious (braised with tomatoes and pine nuts). I just don't want to be visited in my dreams by El-ahrairah and hordes of Owsla scrabbling in the dark, and waking up with pseudo-Efrafan teeth marks buried in my haunches. No recipe is worth that. Except maybe chocolate mousse.

Comments

[ckd]

I too have been inclined toward eating that which I identify with, but a box of Nerds is a lot easier to prepare than rabbit. (No cooking. :-)

[rain-herself.livejournal.com]

If you can't do it, I understand. But if it were me, I think I would do it the Native American way. Which I really feel like I should do all the time. The whole, "Thank you for dying so I might live, and making the quality of my life full of flavor and joy. I respect your sacrifice." thing. Of course that works better if you do the killing and make it humane and insure that you only take what you need and blah blah, but that way lies vegetarianism.

[rubian77.livejournal.com]

+1!

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

Hm. I never thought of it that way.
My critter is Deer - he's a feisty buck (now tell me you're surprised) - and I not only have eaten venison, I support the idea of us in this country moving from beef and to venison, as it makes more environmental sense.
And yet I never thought about the disconnect.
Hmm.

[ultra-lilac.livejournal.com]

If rabbits are like other rodents they probably nom on each other all the time in the wild, so perhaps you're not deviating from rabbit-ness as such.

In France you can see them hanging up skinned, with the bulging eyes still in at a lot of supermarkets. Pretty tough to look at, but jolly tasty.

[gows.livejournal.com]

Think of it as consuming that which you identify with in order to make its powers more your own.

In other news, one of our rabbits kindled perhaps a dozen last week. Sadly, none survived. She ate several of her own offspring, by the bye.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

...and if you're planning to make chocolate mousse out of those rabbit corpses you can DO IT OVER THERE. far away. far, far away.

you might have a career in comedy writing, though. :>

[fiddledragon]

Ok - I have to be perfectly honest, I did find you getting rabbit to cook and eat a little weird given the whole Part of your Identity thing, but I didn't really want to go there while we were on the phone...while you were in the middle of a downpour.

[rubian77.livejournal.com]

I have the same issue. Rabbit is tasty, but also a totem aspect of myself.

But I look at it this way -- personally, I do not want myself to go to waste (cremation = ash = fertilizer, FYI) and if it were acceptable and legal and knowingly tasty I'd much rather be eaten by my friends/family than by people who didn't know or like me.

The important part is that you respect the cooking/dining process, IMHO. Though I'd never be able to shoot one myself at this point in my life, if I were starving I may do it...and expect that my Totem would know, and help me out.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'd strongly prefer to be eathen by those who love me when I die. They fed me with love, I feed them with my body. AND I felt that way *before* I read Stranger In A Strange Land.

Needless to say, I'd rather be killed in as humane a way as possible. If I got to live out in the wild first, all the better.

Bon Appetit.