Processing wild rabbit for food can be very diseasy!

Roa - Rabbit - from Prescription Art

While researching for info on identifying and processing rabbit carcasses I came across important info about disease risks. I discovered that rabbits can carry the bubonic plague virus which can be easily transferred to humans through contact with the carcass and through fleas living in the animals fur. Rabbits can also transfer Tularemia (Francisella tularensis) through spores on the fur and through eating the meat (look for spots on the liver). Both of these can be deadly and even though we have treatments for each condition these may well be unavailable during the age of warlords.

While I have been unsuccessful in finding a useful guide to carcass identification I did find a great guide to safe processing of rabbit carcasses. The Cooking Inn has a great guide to dressing procedures for handling farmed and wild rabbit carcasses that shows what to look for in a properly dressed rabbit. Unfortunately a properly dressed rabbit has had its head, tail, and front and rear fore-legs removed leaving no obvious features clearly identifying it as a rabbit carcass.
The right leg is left in tact when preparing the carcass for skinning as it is the best point to attach a hanging hook. Given that it is advised that rabbit hunters process their catch in the field while it is still warm leaving the pelt on the rabbit I would ask that the right leg be left on the animal for identification. A cats paw is very easy to spot!

Here is a link to an event I would have loved to have attended. Rabbit Discovered was an event celebrating slow food with wild rabbit as the centre piece of the meal. People attending were given a demonstration of how to safely prepare and portion a wild rabbit carcass with opportunities to have a go at processing the carcass themselves.
From what I've been able to gather wild rabbits can now be sold un-eviscerated (un-gutted) allowing the purchaser to identify any issues with the liver revealing Tularemia.

But not this stuff!

I said I loved canned food but this stuff won't be going into my pantry! There's been a bit of an ad campaign for this stuff and another brand called "Chop chop chicken" lately and I have always wondered about chicken in a can. Why is it that they're trying to sell a product like this to us now?

Blech! Noted Culinary Anthropologist Margaret Visser tells of how in Europe and North America the eating of a fowl on occasion was deemed a luxury to which everyone had a right. A roasted bird as the centre piece of a special meal would be quite a luxury in the age of warlords.

Joan Gussow's dark vision of a future chicken fed by pipes and harvested for flesh seems a little closer. It says shredded chicken breast on the can but I wonder where they get the bits from?

I wasn't impressed when I opened the can.


And even less impressed when I checked the texture, disappointing! The shred was too fine with no real 'meaty' shreds (so to speak).

Shortly after this photo I spat my first mouth full in the bin and chucked the rest of the can away!

I like canned food!

The other night I admitted something in conversation that kind of surprised me. We were discussing organic certification and food miles when I said "I like canned food!". I wasn't just espousing an intellectual value, and it's wasn't a retro thing or some attachment from childhood or a reaction against trendy packaged pasta sauces or vege stock in a sachet. It's not a 'warholesque' visual thing either. I was expressing a kind of 'romantic' aesthetic sense about canned goods.
What informs this aesthetic sense? It's the integrity of the design of the product, that it achieves it purpose humbly and consistently in a way that is unmatched. It's the idea that towns have grown around canneries and that many canneries grew from farmers cooperatives. It's that canneries are such a poignant example of value adding technology, like smoking fish it is preserving but with industrial age technology.
When human societies developed food preserving techniques they were able to take greater advantage of abundance and survive the hard times. Pickles, preserves, brewing of alcoholic beverages, smoking and drying all played a significant part in the growth of civilisation. These are important food technologies that we will need to appreciate and be knowledgeable about in the coming dark age.


I'm a bit of a stickler for cooking food from scratch. I have been cooking dried beans from scratch for a long time and feel that I have finally able to make them as tender and delicious as canned or fresh beans. I like dried beans because they are convenient, and they store well and keep for a long time but I have learned that it takes a lot of water to soak, boil, rinse, and cool dried beans.
In the age of warlords we will be thankful for canned beans. I'm certain that access to water will be severely limited for most of us in 'The West'. Canned food in general will reduce our need for water use in the kitchen as the hard work has already been done.
We have become accustomed to free flowing potable water straight from the tap anytime. Unlike many places in the developing world we don't spend a large portion of our time just getting access to water. But as society crumbles and the infrastructure that delivers our water to us in such a convenient way becomes impossible to maintain we will have to adapt!

Check out this site RawFoodExplained.com it has great tips for reducing water consumption in the kitchen and elsewhere. Now is probably a good time to start practicing some of these methods. It also may be a good time to pick up a good second hand pressure cooker.