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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

The Way We Eat: Rabbit Is Rich
By RANDY KENNEDY
Published: March 12, 2006

One of my favorite scenes in the Jim Jarmusch movie "Down by Law" involves 
Roberto Benigni standing in the woods, triumphantly clutching a dead rabbit 
by its hind legs and trying to explain to his fellow prison escapees Tom 
Waits and John Lurie that he has just procured their supper, the 
old-fashioned way.

"Very difficult to catch rabbit," Benigni pants. "I run half an hour for 
this rabbit.. . .Very cunning rabbit."

I have never had to chase one down for sustenance. But since I started 
regularly cooking rabbit several years ago, it has felt like an epic hunt, 
requiring all my cunning, to find a fresh one for sale. Even in Brooklyn, 
where I live, my only reliable supplier for years was an Italian butcher in 
Bensonhurst, which meant a subway ride. And on trips to see family, I might 
as well have been looking for a moon rock. In St. Louis last fall, I 
finally tracked down some fryers (or young rabbits) at the old Soulard 
Farmer's Market, and the purveyors, whose stall also included a box of 
skinned coons and a fresh beaver tail that looked like a prehistoric fish, 
seemed surprised that I had actually shown up after phoning.

Of course, once you have located the rabbit, then comes the real surprise: 
the price. I have never bought a fryer for much less than $20, which means 
about $6 per pound, compared with $2 or maybe $3 a pound for a high-quality 
chicken. It has never made sense to me. Didn't we all learn in school that 
rabbits multiply like, well, rabbits? They have been farm animals since at 
least the Middle Ages. So why is it that buying one feels like buying foie 
gras?

The short answer is that modern Americans — except maybe during World War 
II, when rabbit was sold cheaply because of food shortages — have never 
fully accepted Oryctolagus cuniculus as food. Perhaps as a result, Congress 
doesn't mandate inspection of rabbits. If they want a voluntary federal 
inspection, processors must pay, which pushes prices up. And since many 
stores won't carry non-U.S.D.A.-approved meat, rabbit is harder to find.

In an odd way, it suffers from a dual image problem here. Rabbit is still 
seen by some as a poverty meat, not far removed from raccoon. But nowadays, 
paradoxically, the meat is also seen as too haute — and suspiciously 
French, even in these post-freedom-fries days — thumbing its nose at our 
images of rabbits as pets and clever cartoon characters. (It surely didn't 
help John Kerry's campaign when his wealthy wife promoted rabbit as the 
healthiest meat for kids.)

But she wasn't off the mark. It is high in protein and low in fat. And 
although rabbit draws the inevitable comparison to chicken because it is 
white meat and the texture is similar, rabbit nearly always tastes better 
to me — not gamy, just richer and more interesting. Plus, it is not 
intimidating to cook, even for fire-up-the-burners-and-wing-it home chefs 
like me, as long as you remember that "low fat" also means "easily dried 
out." Not to worry: just quickly fry off-the-bone pieces in a pan. Or even 
more foolproof, brown it, toss it into a pot with some vegetables and 
almost any braising liquid — stock, wine, tomatoes, hard cider, even beer — 
and sit back while a low-temperature oven makes you an amazing meal.

In much of the country, sadly, this might be the only way you'll get to eat 
it. Philippe Trosch, the chef at the Ventana Room in Tucson, complains that 
he has sometimes had to drop rabbit from his menu because he can't find a 
steady supply that meets his standards.

"I barely see it on California menus or in the Southwest," says Trosch, who 
grew up eating it at Sunday family dinners in Biarritz, France. "A lot of 
younger chefs here just don't have any idea how to cook it." With deep 
culinary disappointment, the Gallic kind, he adds, "I don't understand."

Neither do I. But right about now I would really like one with a nice, 
creamy mustard sauce and some thyme. I guess it's hunting season again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/magazine/312food.html?_r=1&oref=slogin