Would You Eat a Rat?

It has been said that there is a 12:1 ratio of rats to people in New York City. Granted, this is just an estimate, but it cannot be far off, considering the city has been plagued with rats for over a century. So it is fitting that this city, host to so many rats as well as vibrant discussions on sustainable eating, would also be an opportune place to start serving up rats for human consumption.

Don’t panic: you will not find rats on (or off) the menu at Gramercy Tavern, as we are probably decades away from the wide acceptance of rats for dinner (unless there is another impending apocalypse around the corner). However, call it art, call it performance, or just call it a fairly unappetizing dinner, but recently, at the Allegra LaViola Gallery on the Lower East Side, people were feasting on an assortment of rat meat preparations. What used to be relegated to the poorest of castes in India is now considered a sort of stunt dinner for the select few that were invited to artist Laura Ginn’s opening at the LES gallery. The show, entitled “Tomorrow We Will Feast Again on What We Catch,” centered on a multicourse meal in which the main ingredients, and aesthetic stars, were rats. Diners nibbled on goat cheese bruschetta topped with rat leg tenderloin, and rat-pork terrine encircled with beef fat, all of which were shipped from a United States Department of Agriculture-approved West Coast processor that supplies pet owners with humanely-killed, individually flash-frozen rodents (not exactly local eating). To take things even further, the artist wore a dress made of 300 rat pelts.

Granted, most people are extremely squeamish, if not repelled, by the idea of eating a rat, and this event was not intended to promote rat eating so much as careful consideration of our relationship to this vermin—but what if we did devise a way to consume this plentiful source of protein? Sure, you wouldn’t want to pluck just any rat from the sewer and throw it in a sauté pan, but what if we could find a sustainable, safe, and desirable way to address both our desire for cheap animal protein as well as our expanding rat population in one culinary gesture? Could you, would you eat a rat?

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Camilla V.

11:08PM PDT on May 22, 2013

no i am vegan

May 22
send a green star

Dale O.

12:55AM PDT on May 14, 2013

True Colleen P, there are a lot of 'Caps Lock Offences' on Care2. Do some of them get 'ratted out' to those giving Anger Management courses?

May 14
send a green star

Alexandra S.

2:23AM PDT on May 12, 2013

OK, nevermind. it said "pests" not "pets" XD

Still wouldn't eat a rat because i'm vegetarian. But probably would if I ate meat, since it couldn't be worse that all the other meat out there

May 12
send a green star

2:15AM PDT on May 12, 2013

Why is that in the pet section? In here it just seems wrong on so many levels:S

Helena E.

1:22PM PDT on May 9, 2013

No...

May 9
send a green star

1:44AM PDT on May 1, 2013

never,besides i am a vegan,thank you for sharing

May 1
send a green star

Ila V.

2:37AM PDT on Apr 17, 2013

No! I have 2 sweet ratties & rats are wonderful companions. I could never think of eating them, or even think of feeding them to snakes. As to wild ones, let them stay wild. (Don't throw trash in the streets!)