1:28 am
Now I’d like to turn our discussion of the white meats to cat, which just so happens to be my own favorite for a good old succulent tuckin with garlic de rigueur. Culled from the wild or farmed at home, these widely available roof rabbits are crowd pleasers regardless of season. Now cats caught wild are best eaten between three months to a year old, as they do get more sinewy after that time. I’d go as far as two years if the cat in question lives nearby and you can acquire it on the quiet and, I should add, on the cheap. You will find the more sedentary farmed cat, though somewhat inferior in flavor, can be butchered at an older age with no significant loss of tenderness. Both the cat farmed at home and its wild cousin tend to be on the gamey side, so it is always best to leave it in a stream or under running cold water for three days; what comes out is a delicacy! If running water is in short supply, the tried and true vinegar method works nearly as well. In this case soak the cat in a mixture of 6 1/4 cups water and 3/4 cups white wine vinegar for 30 minutes before you cook. Cat works marveously in many recipes, but when purchasing be sure to ask the butcher to show you the head. Shocking as it might seem, rabbits are a common substitute, though they come nowhere near cat meat for tenderness. Cat in a thick sauce is better than chicken, rabbit, or pigeon.