The Appetising Rabbit

We spent the majority of yesterday's lunch talking about how food crazes come and go similar to that of children's toys. We decided one food which has had a fascinating history, with yo-yoing popularity ratings, is that of the rabbit.

During the 1930-40s, finding rabbit on the table was a common place. With food reserves running dry, any game such as rabbit, pigeon and venison was something to be desired. Older generations still to this day have fond memories of buying rabbits and other wild game from the markets and boiling them up.

However, times changed fast for their children grew up alongside an explosion in agricultural intensification resulting in food production far outweighing food consumption. In conjunction with this, the rabbit population dramatically nose dived as myxomatosis spread like wild fire across the UK (over 99% died). Any rabbits seen in Britain during this period were blind, fevered, and half dead – not particularly appetising. In the end the rabbit as a dish past a couple of generations with out a second thought.

The glutinous food boom continues to this day – in some form or another. However, slowly but surely with the help of campaigns (like ours!) people are returning to local and healthy foods. This beggars the question why is rabbit still far from popular delicatessen it once was? We broke it down to two main reasons.

• First and foremost; it has now been almost three generations since rabbit has been seen as an acceptable meat. Never before have there been less people with the knowledge of butchering and cooking this British delicacy.


• Secondly and probably more importantly; is to do with the rabbits other name 'the bunny'. Bunnies are now commonplace in many households – especially amongst children, and are seen as cute, fluffy, little pets that only eat carrots and hop about. Just as Bambi did for venison, thumper and his Disney gang really won over the children.