Rat-a-toui

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sudsmaster

sudsmaster

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Warning: if you're at all squeamish about rats, don't read any further and don't click on the link.

That said, this is an interesting news story from India about a new way for people to catch rats in farm fields. Apparently there's a whole tribe or caste of Indians who are rat-catchers, and with the new rat trap machine, they have tripled their daily catch and are hoping to be able to send their children to school so they can do something else with their lives beside catching rats.

It's a win-win situation for everyone except maybe the rats: the farmers get to keep more of their crops, the Indian nation gets more food from the land, and the rat catchers get more meat in their diet. Yes, they consider rat meat to be a delicacy and in their words, they are "feasting"...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/06/MN32TVLQQ.DTL&hw=rats&sn=001&sc=1000
 
Interesting. IIRC when the reality show "The Amazing Race" was new and novel, one of the stops was at some kind of rat palace in India--it was literally crawling with them everywhere--and locals would go to feed the rats or make other offerings. Like they had similar status to cows or something. I guess that's not the case all across India after reading the article contained in the above link.
 
Well, India is a very large and surprisingly diverse country. They have 28 states that are allocated basically on linquistic differences, and I understand there are many sects of Hinduism as well as several other major religions (Buddhism, Sikhism, etc) that originated in India, and more that were introduced later.

I also recall seeing a TV show with a look at the rat temple in India. Not too surprising, as there is a sect of Hinduism there that is so reverent of life that the adherents wear masks over their noses and mouths so that they won't inadvertently inhale a gnat and kill it.
 
thought that the belief in re-incarnation ruled that out?

Not sure how that reincarnation belief works, but in general the Hindus will not eat or use any product other than milk from a cow, since it is considered a sacred animal. Ever heard of chicken tandoori? Also, I believe lamb is eaten there as well. Some Hindus are vegetarian but I don't think that is the majority.

Rats are probably considered unclean by most Hindus, as they are regarded here, and not a foodstuff. But I suspect a rat, eating grain in the fields is relatively clean, and I'm told it tastes like chicken anyway.

The intersting part of the article is the implication that India cannot grow enough food to feed all its population, but if rats were elmininated, it could.
 

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