Simple question - Do Thais eat Rabbit?

[KIWIBATCH]

Being a New Zealander...we ate rabbit regularly...wild ones from the countryside. Braised in a pot for an hour or two with onions and potatos....Rabbit stew..it was hard to beat.

Rabbits are classed as a noxious pest in NZ and are therefore on the recreational shooters target list.

Thais consider rabbits as pets and likewise to a comment made by an earlier poster...thai folk look at me horrified when I tell them I have eaten rabbit.

Rabbits have have many uses (see attached pic)

[David48]

Easter will never be the same again ...

[Gandtee]

My Thai nephew in Bangkok was breeding and selling rabbits for a few thousand baht each. An expensive rabbit pie!! But then if you told the hi so diners here that they cost that much, most probably they would go for it just for the face

[nanapong]

The village is about 10 miles south of KPP. At present they have about 6 rabbits.

It is something new for their community. I guess if it is successful then more neighbours will start keeping them.

How widely it is consumed I have no idea.

No sheep yet. I would guess they would need to be in cooler mountainous regions.

If it's successful " all " the neighbours will start keeping them. Most likely all the other villages within 20km as well. Then you'll start to see stalls down the highway , all selling rabbits. Thai logic !!!

[h90]

My Japanese associates were astonished when I suggested rabbit at the restaurant. They all made the oooo...sounds but accepted wide eyed and fascinated. One of them, I remember, used to repeat 'labbit, labbit?? They loved it in the end.

So the Japanese do not eat rabbit but also my Filipino wife does not eat rabbit. As with lamb, my Filipino wife was coaxed into eating it by promising her that it was baby pork chops. Of course she enjoyed it. The excuse for not liking it is that ,according to the belief in the Philippines, smells terribly. I do not think lamb is eaten beyond India.

It seems that rabbit and lamb are not eaten in the Far East for reasons beyond my knowledge..

I think lamb is eaten everywhere where Muslims are, or? That it smells maybe comes from the smell an old male sheep can have. And when selling it...lamb, older lamb, much older lamb, very oldest lamb.....cheating a bit and than the lamb smells

[Thaiberius]

As a child in the UK I had a pet bunny labbit. As a family we would quite often have chicken stew, it was only years later my parents confessed that most of the time it was labbit stew and they had told me it was chicken so as not to upset me. Can I sue?

[MJP]

I have yet to see a rabbit in Thailand. Or a horse for that matter.

There is however an elephant that stroles around the village.

I find the presence of an elephant far more interesting than that of a rabbit or a horse.

But I couldn't eat a whole one.

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[Squeegee]

I've yet to meet one Thai who shares my enthusiasm for eating Rabbit.

I think they find them far too cute to even consider cooking.

I tried some rat for the first time late last year (a large plump field rat as opposed to a dirty city rat). To my surprise, it tasted very similar

to rabbit.

Just a thought...

The countryside rats are pretty good but they do have a tendancy to taste earthy & watery if you get them from the paddie. They should really cure the meat first and it would taste a lot better.

This stereotype that Thais eat anything that moves might hold in Isaan, but really most Thais seem extremely conservative and limited in what they are willing to eat.

[LawrenceN]

Tum yum, laab?

Spot on. There's a restaurant outside of Chiang Mai on 118, the Doi Saket Road, with a big sign out front that says (in Thai), "Rabbit laab." BUT, the restaurant and the rabbit farm supplying it are owned by a Brit who tells me there wasn't enough demand for rabbit, so he has stopped raising them. He used to supply Rimping Market, but rabbit didn't sell well enough. So I don't really know whether that particular restaurant still sells rabbit laab, but the answer to your question is yes, Thais eat rabbit.

BTW, if you're going to start eating rabbit. I recommend stew. I used to trap them in Wisconsin if they nibbled my tulips popping up in April. Good with turnips in the stew.

[LawrenceN]

Tum yum, laab?

Spot on. There's a restaurant outside of Chiang Mai on 118, the Doi Saket Road, with a big sign out front that says (in Thai), "Rabbit laab." BUT, the restaurant and the rabbit farm supplying it are owned by a Brit who tells me there wasn't enough demand for rabbit, so he has stopped raising them. He used to supply Rimping Market, but rabbit didn't sell well enough. So I don't really know whether that particular restaurant still sells rabbit laab, but the answer to your question is yes, Thais eat rabbit.

BTW, if you're going to start eating rabbit. I recommend stew. I used to trap them in Wisconsin if they nibbled my tulips popping up in April. Good with turnips in the stew.

I should add: My lovely (Thai) wife, when I killed and dressed those rabbits in Wisconsin, refused to open the refrigerator with the dressed rabbit in a plastic bag on a plate in there. Looked just like a chicken ready to bake at that point, but it was too much for her, knowing that it had been a living thing in our own backyard. But I invited a male Thai friend over for the stew, and he enjoyed it very much.

[Seastallion]

when I lived in Australia I got very friendly with a farmer. We were regular visitors to his property for over 33 years before I came to Thailand. He introduced me to 'spotlighting' rabbits as they were eating his produce. I used to shoot 2 sacks of them per outing.. I used to like them curried. He used to sell me a wether which is a ram that has been castrated when a lamb. He used to sell me a grown wether for $5.00. he used to kill,gut, skin, and prepare it for me. Another friend of mine had 5 yearling steers on a property and he sold me one on the hoof for $15.00. I had to cut it up myself though. Do not confuse the word wether with weather, and whether as I have seen people do.

In Wales the castrated lamb is a Hogget, tastes the same. On subject of rabbit my wife says nooo rabbit for looking at, I love them.

A good Aussie friend was showing us photo of him with green parrots sitting on his arms, my wife's first question "You can eat them" can't print his reply

Wether is a castrated ram as stated, and a hogget is a sheep under 2 years old but older than a lamb, a "2 tooth" in the slaughter industry (only 2 of the front teeth have grown). ie in between lamb and mutton. A pre-pubescent teenage sheep.

Hogget is not popular as they are generally very fatty.

[Tchooptip]

Also its one of the animals on the Chinese calender, and they Frown on eating it., My wife loved Lamb., but I told her it was beef... Kinda like eating a cow in India...

The connection to the Chinese calendar makes no sense. Thai people happily eat rat, ox, snake, rooster and pig - all of which are on the calendar. No reason why rabbit should be different.

No reason why rabbit should be different.

Because his majesty the King was born the year of the rabbit

[jonesthebaker]

I asked Wifey and her family about this a while back, I'm partial to a bit of rabbit stew.

Answer - No, never, labbit is a pet.

End of my idea of keeping a few bunnies for the pot.

my wife is Thai and she eats rabbit.

so answer is yes - some thais do eat rabbit

[Canada]

The wife is from sakon nakhon and reckons no thais eat dog...it's only the vietnamese and chinese in that area. I don't know if she's correct (certainly true though for her village area).

Thais eat dogs in my neighbourhood. Usually the younger generation (Thais, not dogs)

[kimbathewhitelion]

Asia, Philippines, eat everything. I eat bugs after many drinks, but hate chicken feet. Cow brains are also good when sautéed in garlic butter. Cow balls with the same treatment are also good. I'm a 'say no to dogs', but will eat cats.

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[Gandtee]

Asia, Philippines, eat everything. I eat bugs after many drinks, but hate chicken feet. Cow brains are also good when sautéed in garlic butter. Cow balls with the same treatment are also good. I'm a 'say no to dogs', but will eat cats.

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I didn't know that cows had balls? Fish, yes. They sell them in the market, but you can't see them on the fish?

[kimbathewhitelion]

Excuse me, steers. I tend to clump all the dumb animals together.

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[Petey]

Some years back took my first Thai wife to dinner at the house of some Swiss friends. She took a bite of one dish and said it's delicious, what is it? When told it was rabbit she went pale and started crying, was unconsolable and had to leave the table. She acted like she had commited a sin.

The second Thai wife's family used to raise rabbits to sell the offspring. She never tasted the meat but probably would have tried it if someone had prepared it for her, as she is usually open to trying anything. She knows a few people around here who hunt and eat wild rabbits.

[ableguy]

Seen labbit on menu in BKK, compared to rats and cockroach a delicacy .

[pomchop]

Some years back took my first Thai wife to dinner at the house of some Swiss friends. She took a bite of one dish and said it's delicious, what is it? When told it was rabbit she went pale and started crying, was unconsolable and had to leave the table. She acted like she had commited a sin.

The second Thai wife's family used to raise rabbits to sell the offspring. She never tasted the meat but probably would have tried it if someone had prepared it for her, as she is usually open to trying anything. She knows a few people around here who hunt and eat wild rabbits.

Are there really wild rabbits in Thailand? I have never seen any in the wild....seems they would do well in some of the rural areas.

[phanu]

YES, Thai eat rabbit !

There were rabits on my land around Chiang Mai before I built my home... all where eaten by my workers !

So, I can answer YES !

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[medisasean]

Some of them may eat but it isn't common food.