Pyramid #3/52: Low-Tech II

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Bruno

...

Lastly there was a (strained) hope that the militants might not recognize them as a food source, or regard them as too low status to be worth stealing.

Lots of people do have an issue with eating rodents, even really cute ones.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Lots of people do have an issue with eating rodents, even really cute ones.

That makes no sense at all. Look at the types of animals that are widely eaten in China and elsewhere in Asia. Look at how widespread the "bush meat" culture is. I think your definition of "lots" would only be applicable amongst people with a similar upbringing as your own. Personally I would have no problem eating rodents - even rats - if I knew them to be disease free.

[ErhnamDJ]

Squirrels are rodents. If people have a problem eating them, they've never mentioned it to me.

[Kalzazz]

Trying to clean and fillet a rat or guinea pig seems like far far to much effort to be worth it

Rats and guinea pigs are stuck in my mind as 'Cute pet animals', so Im not sure Id want to eat one, nor cats, dogs or horses

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Trying to clean and fillet a rat or guinea pig seems like far far to much effort to be worth it

No more difficult than a fish, and people happily heat crappies and bluegills which are smaller than rats or Guinea pigs. Gutting and skinning are easy, and then you can just spit them and roast them over a fire until cooked, and pick the meat off the bones with your fingers and lips.

Also on the subject of alternative animals that can thrive on kitchen waste, you could also introduce dubia cockroaches (Blaptica dubia). These roaches are large, soft bodied, not overly chitinous, cannot climb glass or smooth surfaces, do not fly, are fairly slow moving and clumsy, and reproduce rapidly. You can easily distinguish the adult males from the females (females lack full wings, males have them), so you can just eat the males (be sure to leave a few) and leave the brood females to make more roaches. Because they are cold-blooded, they should be more efficient at turning waste into meat than warm blooded animals (also, roaches have a special adaptation for nitrogen recycling that drastically reduces their protein requirements), so you should get more meat for a given amount of waste. Considering as many cultures consider insects delicious, and since dubias can form the bulk of the diet of various exotic animals, this might be an interesting and off-beat addition to let people know that they are in a different world than our own.

Luke

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Lots of people do have an issue with eating rodents, even really cute ones.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

That makes no sense at all. Look at the types of animals that are widely eaten in China and elsewhere in Asia. Look at how widespread the "bush meat" culture is. I think your definition of "lots" would only be applicable amongst people with a similar upbringing as your own.

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

Squirrels are rodents. If people have a problem eating them, they've never mentioned it to me.

There's a big band across the central US and up into parts of Canada where even the English-descended folks think squirrels are an acceptable (if perhaps low status) food animal.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Trying to clean and fillet a rat or guinea pig seems like far far to much effort to be worth it

People around here persist in cooking the little sunfish they catch (like, 6 inches long, if that). My "Joy of Cooking" has instructions on how to prepare squirrel, starting from skinning. It's much like rabbit, and frankly the rabbits around here are tiny too. And eaten.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Rats and guinea pigs are stuck in my mind as 'Cute pet animals', so Im not sure Id want to eat one, nor cats, dogs or horses

For me, there's an enormous gulf between "pet animal of any kind" and "food animal of any kind". You don't eat someone's pet lamb or pet pig or pet horse or pet dog or pet rat. It's a pet. That's somewhere between rude and creepy. Or possibly both rude and creepy.

But lamb chops and bacon and horse steaks are all very good and don't bother me a bit. I've not eaten dog or rat yet (at least, not knowingly) but that's a matter of opportunity rather that discomfort.

With wild rodents, a really big thing is to make sure your mental picture isn't "sewer rat". There's a BIG difference between an animal living in humanity's waste, and one that's living in a forest eating acorns and beachnuts (and farmer's crops). The sewer rat shouldn't be eaten because ew.

[Flyndaran]

Okay, I guess I do tend to overgeneralize from American/European urban culture to humanity in general.

I don't eat any mammals, so I don't quite understand the pet versus food animal mental gymnastics that many people go through.
For me, a pet is an individual member of a specific family, not a species.

[DouglasCole]

Yes, but if a chicken does a setup attack on a squirrel, what does the caravanserai master do?

[Kalzazz]

Having lived in rural areas most of my existence Ive never seen the famed sewer rat, the rats Ive seen are ones I would have no fear of eating, but are very cute and remind me much of pet rats

Rabbits are tasty, but to small for me to muster the desire to bother trying to shoot one

I dont eat fish that isn't nicely filleted, Ive done so in the past and always felt the annoyance far exceeded any value from eating fish with bones

I figure that deer and on up to buffalo represent more appropriate amounts of food to make animals worth cleaning

Of course, my cultural heritage involves tractors, trucks, chain hoists, and running water for collecting and cleaning your buffalo after you shoot it, and vacuum sealers and chest freezers for proper storage . . . . so the Low Tech applicability is rather low

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I don't eat any mammals, so I don't quite understand the pet versus food animal mental gymnastics that many people go through.
For me, a pet is an individual member of a specific family, not a species.

for me its mostly intelligence and camaraderie on the food chain. but I'm a fan of dogs, cats, and horses, regarding things like pet rabbits to be sad side effects of the urbanization of society (hint: you eat them) and pet rats to be an utter perversion.

I think for a lot of people its the idea that the animal could have been someone's pet, and they limit pets to certain species. What bothers me where some people draw the "pet species" line.