Title: Rabbit Information
Categories: Game Info
Yield: 1 Servings

No Ingredients Found

Source: The National Culinary Review April'94 Although it isn't Our usual habit, This year we're eating The Easter Rabbit. Carr blames cuddly bunnies for killing the public's appetite, although the ARBA itself promotes pets as well as meat. "Probably the number-one problem we have in this country is the Peter Rabbit syndrome," he says. "So many people out there wouldn't think anything of eating chicken or beef or pork. But to eat a poor rabbit with its little nose and its big ears - how in the world can you do such a thing?" To be fair, Carr adds, rabbit can't compete yet at the supermarket. Mass- produced and mass-marketed chicken sometimes sells for less than $1 a pound, while locally grown rabbit costs at least $3. Ethnic groceries in cities like New York and San Francisco often carry imported rabbit at hamburger prices, but Carr says this inferior meat from China, Brazil and the rest of South America only hurts the reputation of all rabbit. Why does American rabbit taste

better and cost more? Quality feed, Carr says. Foreign rabbits eat grass. Finally, demand for rabbit rises at the ebb of supply, making availability inconsistent. Rabbits flourish and reproduce in the summer, but most people have pigeonholed rabbit as a winter dish. "There's an old myth that rabbits shouldn't be eaten during hot months, which comes from old times when wild rabbit used to get yellow fever in the summer," says Carr. Whether from folklore or habit, people steer clear of rabbit from about May through October - which has helped put a lot of rabbit processors out of business. "The breeders breed the rabbits in the summer and the processors buy them in the fall and put them in freezers," says Carr. "They just hope they have enough to last until spring." The low visibility of rabbit in the marketplace can work to the advantage of a chef, however. "Rabbit has not really been accepted as such a common item as chicken," says Zifchak. "If somebody orders rabbit, they do it once in a while, and they're willing to pay that extra cost, I find." At lunch, when customers may balk at a higher-priced entree, Zifchak often offers rabbit as an appetizer. "It allows me to make a little more money on the individual animal," he says. Both Carr and Zifchak agree that once customers get over their squeamishness and try rabbit, they will like it. "It's just a matter of educating people that it's a great product," Carr says. In the past few decades, the growing interest in American regional cuisine has encouraged chefs to place rabbit on the menu. For instance, Louisiana chef John Folse, CEC, AAC, vice president of the ACF Central Region, regularly features rabbit at his acclaimed Cajun/Creole restaurant Lafitte's Landing and in his globe-trotting "Taste of Louisiana" demonstrations. Skilled hunters and trappers, Cajuns often made one-pot meals out of game - a tradition Folse has refined, for instance, by sauteing domestic rabbit with a brandy/demiglace/cream reduction. Even in Chicago, Zifchak was able to excite diners about rabbit. "In the late 1980s, it was not well received or well known," he says. "Only people who had experienced it, maybe in Europe, knew how it tasted - liked it, preferred it and ordered it. We had to do things in the front of the house to try to sell it - have the waiter talk about it quite a bit. Today, though, many more people have tried it, and you can put rabbit on the menu and not have to make such a big deal out of it. It will sell by itself." Bon Appetit, Ecec.Chef Magnus Johansson

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