I was looking on line for unusual meat eating habits and came across this website
http://www.messybeast.com/eat-cats.htm
Here's a short section regarding past British eating habits, maybe we shouldn't be quite so quick to criticise Koreans or Chinese.
This recipe for "Roast Cat as It Should Be Prepared" is from Ruperto de Nola, Libro de Cozina, 1529: Take a cat that should be plump: and cut its throat, and once it is dead cut off its head, and throw it away for this is not to be eaten; for it is said that he who eats the brains will lose his own sense and judgement. Then skin it very cleanly, and open it and clean it well; and then wrap it in a clean linen cloth and bury it in the earth where it should remain for a day and a night; then take it out and put it on a spit; and roast it over the fire, and when beginning to roast, baste it with good garlic and oil, and when you are finished basting it, beat it well with a green branch; and this should be done until it is well roasted, basting and beating; and when it is roasted carve it as if it were rabbit or kid and put it on a large plate; and take the garlic with oil mixed with good broth so that it is coarse, and pour it over the cat and you can eat it for it is a good dish.
In England in the Middle Ages, it was considered lucky to roast a cat alive on a spit before a slow fire prior to eating the first meal in a new house. Whether the cat formed part of the meal was uncertain as cat-torture was rife at the time. However, the cat was also used in medicine. An old recipe "for hym that haves the squyhansy [quinsy" begins "tak a fatte katte, flae hot wele and clene." The cat is then stuffed with hedgehog fat, resin, fenugreek, wax and other ingredients before being roast. After roasting, it's not the flesh that is consumed, but the grease that is used to anoint the patient. While not eating a cat, it certainly demonstrates a willingness to roast one.
During Britain's Industrial Revolution (late 18th to early 19th century), the Livestock Journal and Fancier's Gazette published and article called "Eating Cats in West Bromwich" (a West Midlands town close to Birmingham). Cat has also been eaten in Britain. During wartime rationing, cats found their way into "rabbit" stews/pies and hence earned themselves the nickname "roof-rabbit". With so many city strays and pets abandoned by bombed out families, cats were a substitute for rabbit. A former colleague whose father was in the butchery trade during that time told me that butchers sometimes kept cats as ratters; the cat later ended up being sold as "rabbit". The rationale was simple - a surplus of homeless cats living off of vermin, plus the fact that the supply of wild rabbit from the countryside had been suspended. The following rhyme summed up the keeping of cats in peace-time and the eating of them in times of hardship.
Oh kittens, in our hours of ease
Uncertain toys and full of fleas,
When pain and anguish hang o’er men,
We turn you into sausage then.
Originally Posted by mickcant
They are meat just like any other animal. Psychologically I wouldn't want to eat cat or dog because we think they are cute and fluffy pets, but if I lived in the middle of nowhere in central Asia, and I didn't know better, and a cat offered me a valuable source of protein, I bet i'd eat it then.
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