Ok, I’ve seen a lot in my travels, but this was a new one.
A fried rat recipe (with mango sauce.)
And then I did a little research and found something surprising…
Rats are surprisingly common food
A quick internet search internet found rat recipes in Taiwanese, Chinese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Spanish cuisine. And that’s just to start!
And hey, here at The Coconut Mama, we’re all about surfacing great food from different cultures. From the Thai specialty tom kha gai to coconut chicken curry and everything in between – so when I saw this recipe, I had to share it.
And I’m sure it tastes great! (Although there are some risks to eating rats – see the next section – I would NOT recommend trying to duplicate the recipe below.)
But let’s face it, fried food in general is delicious. The key is finding interesting things to fry and interesting ways to do it. Take this fried zucchini chips recipe – it’s surprisingly good and a great alternative to “boring old” potato chips. (And it’s grain-free, always a plus.)
Are rats ok to eat?
I would say rats are generally NOT great to eat. They aren’t widely eaten outside of the places I described above, in part because they tend to carry lots of diseases and parasites. If you don’t cook it well or if the meat itself is contaminated, there are some big health risks.
To expand on that last point, rats are scavengers and so they may be eating lots of stuff that you don’t want in your own body. In the video below, they use rats that have eaten (as far as the cooks know) only a rice diet. That’s a different ballgame than eating just any random rat.
So in summary, please don’t try this at home. But, if you can stomach the graphic images of rats being cooked, check out the video – because it’s incredible.
Check out this ridiculous fried rat cooking video
I saw this in a 1992 action movie called Demolition Man with Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock.Humorous throughout the movie. Thought it was not real.