April Fools! But, there are some Rat Recipes to follow, courtesy of Monty Python.(for educational purposes only) Not for the squeamish or easily offended. Rat Recipes

Rat Pie:

Take four medium -sized rats & lay them on a chopping board. Having first made sure the chopper is freshly sharpened, raise it as high above the rat as you can. Make sure the rat's neck is exposed, the bring the chopper down with as much force as possible onto the neck or head of the rat. Then cook it in a pie.

Rat Souffle':

Make sure the rat's squeals are not audible from the street, particularly in areas where the Ant-Souffle' League and similar do-gooders are out to persecute the innocent pleasures of the table. Anyway, cut the rat and lay it on the chopping board. Raise the chopper high above your head, with the steel glinting in the setting sun, and then bring it down - wham! - with a vivid crunch - straight accross the terrified rodent, and make it into a souffle'.

Bits of Rat Hidden Under a Chair:

This isn't so much as a recipe as a bit of advice in the event members of the Anti-Souffle' League or it's simpering lackeys break into your flat. Your wife (or a friend's) should engage the pusillanimous toadies from the league in conversation, perhaps turning the chat to the price of corn and the terrible damage inflicted by all kinds of rodents on personal property, and rats attacking small babies (this always takes the steam out of them) and you should have time to get any rat-bits safely out of sight. Incidentally do make sure that your current copy of Rat Gourmet hasn't been left lying around, otherwise all will be in vain, and the baying hounds of thee cullinary killjoys will be unleashed upon the things you cherish: your chopping board, the chopper cought in the blood red glare of the fading sun. Bring it down - crunch! The slight splintering of the tiny spinal column under the keen metal! The last squeal and the death twitches of the helpless rat.

-- Deborah, yah, I know it's gross!! (infowars@yahoo.com), April 01, 1999

Answers

Oh noooooo! Couldn't you have printed the Spam recipes instead?

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 01, 1999.

For a bit more variety, try these. (I don't remember where I got these...I've had them for quite a while)

Disgusting Sounding Recipies that could save your life ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There may come a time when it becomes necessary to eat some pretty unpalatable stuff just to stay alive. Let's hope that these times are the exception rather than the rule.

Here are some unusual eatables:

Winged Mamals & Bats Small winged mammals can be treated like squirrels. Fruit bats or flying foxes, which live on bananas and tropical fruits, can be large and good to eat.

Baked bat is made by singeing off the fur or by skinning, then cleaning and quartering the bodies before baking them in a ground oven.

Rats & Mice Bush rats, cane rats, rice rats, wood rats, all types of rats which live in clean vegetable matter provide good meat. Don't eat town rats which have high levels of toxins in them (they have developed imunity, but you haven't).

The easiest way to prepare a rat is to put it into the fire whole, turning it to singe off the fur and whiskers.

The singed fur can be scraped off with a knife. Gut and wash the body. Cut off and discard the feet and tail. Cut the rat into chunks and soak in water for half an hour before cooking. The head is sometimes cooked whole, or crushed with stones to release juices to thicken soup. Add salt and seasoning.

Recommended by the chef: The rats found in the wine cellars in France are best, they are all alchoholic and come ready marinaded.:-)

Mice Field mice of many species can be eaten. A simple method is to skin and clean the mice and skewer them like kebabs. The chef recommends sauteed mice served in a creamy sauce on a bed of rice.

Grubs and Insects Grubs and insects which feed on pure vegetable matter are wholesome and nourishing to eat. It is curious that we love shrimps and crabs, scavengers of the sea bed, yet are repelled by the creepy-crawlies of the land.

Tree Maggots Boil the maggots in salted water, then fry or bake them. To eat, pull off their heads and squeeze out their innards.

Woodlice The common European Woodlouse (found under the bark of rotting trees), tastes a bit like shrimp (to which it is related). Kill the woodlice by dropping them into a cup of boiling water. Mix a little milk and butter with a teaspoon of flour and some seasoning in a pan of water on the fire. When the mixture thickens, add the woodlice. The sauce makes an excellent accompanyment to fish.

If you get hungry enough, you WILL look to the above as a source of food. One way of easily disguising disgusting sounding food is to slap on some curry powder.

Make sure you cook the curry powder though as part of the cooking process. If you just sprinkle it on your food like seasoning, there's a good chance that you will go through a few rolls of toilet tissue in rapid succession before your system adjusts.

-- LP (soldog@hotmail.com), April 01, 1999.

Let's see now... I'll need 42 more cases of Spam, 1,000 more pounds of beans...

-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), April 01, 1999.

Inspector: Then we have number four. Number four: Crunchy Frog.

Mr. Hilton: Yes.

Inspector: Am I right in thinking there's a real frog in 'ere?

Mr. Hilton: Yes, a little one.

Inspector: What sort of frog?

Mr. Hilton: A...a *dead* frog.

Inspector: Is it cooked?

Mr. Hilton: No.

Inspector: What, a RAW frog?!?

Mr. Hilton: Oh, we use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and sealed in a succulent, Swiss, quintuple-smooth, treble- milk chocolate envelope, and lovingly frosted with glucose.

Inspector: That's as may be, but it's still a frog!

Mr. Hilton: What else?

Inspector: Well, don't you even take the bones out?

Mr. Hilton: If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy, would it?

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), April 01, 1999.

Uncle Deedah, you read my mind! There are also dead parrots. . .

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 01, 1999.

I'm so thankful no one's thought of posting those disgusting cannibalism recipes. No, wait... DON'T DO IT!

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), April 01, 1999.

Inspector: Now what about this one, number five, it was number five, wasn't it? Number five: Ram's Bladder Cup. Now, what sort of confectionery is that?

Mr. Hilton: Oh, we use only the finest juicy chunks of fresh Cornish Ram's bladder, emptied, steamed, flavoured with sesame seeds, whipped into a fondue, and garnished with lark's vomit.

Inspector: LARK'S VOMIT?!?!?

Mr. Hilton: Correct.

Inspector: It doesn't say anything here about lark's vomit!

Mr. Hilton: Ah, it does, on the bottom of the box, after 'monosodium glutamate'.

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), April 01, 1999.

[Well into Y2K...]:

- Honey, I can't find any more beans.

- Yeah, and we're out of rice, too. AND no more TVP!

- How's the garden doing?

- Uh, well, it's been completely harvested; guess I should've kept up with the re-seeding better.

- Well, what's left?

- Flashlights, batteries, and ... toilet paper. LOT'S of toilet paper.

- Did you check with the neighbors?

- Yeah, they have toilet paper, too.

TOILET PAPER CREPES (recipe to follow)...

-- Sara Nealy (keithn@aloha.net), April 01, 1999.

ROTFL!!

Stop! Silly, silly, very silly!!! This is quite silly!!

-- Eric Idle (monty@python.brit), April 01, 1999.

What about the ever-popular Ratatouille??????

I mighta known Unc would be here....BTW,...for a great film about eating mice, rent the film "Never Cry Wolf"

"Bring out your dead!!!!!"

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), April 01, 1999.

Would someone like a hedgehog?

Please eat the hedgehog.

Yours,

Dinsdale

-- Kato (infowars@yahoo.com), April 02, 1999.

Got Tums?

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), April 02, 1999.

-- I know I shouldn't.... (butIc@n't.helpmyself), April 02, 1999.

-- hee hee (again@i.say), April 02, 1999.

-- thhhhhh (thhhh@thhhh.thhhh), April 02, 1999.

" Conga-rats!"

-- I give up (never@mind.now), April 02, 1999.

Helloooo...this is the dancing rat, you so callously tried to post to this thread. We refused to appear out of general protest to this whole idea, it is silly, much much toooooo sillly! I speak for all rats when I say, stop this silliness, it is much too frightening, and the baby rats are having nightmares. We hear CATS taste quite lovely, that would not be silly, in fact it would be quite sensible, they are after all much larger than rats..and, well.......

Signed, The Rats

p.s. Are cheese factories affected by y2k?

-- The Rats (monty@python.brits), April 02, 1999.

As First Cat of the United States of America, I was appalled at the post made by the Rats.

I must also protest the post about eating the Rats. Although, I can attest to the fact that Rats are quite yummy, I must protest their use as human y2k fallback edibles.

As I have a 'birds eye view' (don't even think about it) of White House preparations for Y2K, I the First Cat have been very vocal in the Cat Community Preparedness Movement. Rats are our number one staple. Please refrain from using our supplies.

I for one recommend Dogs. They are considerably larger than cats you know, and are considered a delicacy in many countries.

-- Socks, First Cat - President of the Association of Feline Preparation for Y2K (catsfor@y2k.rats), April 02, 1999.

Waaaa! Waaaa! The pictures wouldn't come up. I didn't get to see the Dancing Rats!!! Mommy help!

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), April 02, 1999.

I personally am training African Fly Swallows to deliver coconuts as part of my y2k preps.

Deborah

P.S. Thanks for your light hearted responses you guys are a riot! Laughter is a valuable commodity these days.

-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), April 02, 1999.

You know its good that we can have a good laugh every once in awhile. I think we all get a bit edgy as time goes on. Thanx for the laugh. Its made my day!

-- Sandra (iluvmy8@aol.com), April 02, 1999.

Socks, here Socks!

-- Mickey Mouse (w@nna.be), April 02, 1999.

Socks,

Now go away, before I taunt you a second time!!

-- French Taunting Rat (infowars@yahoo.com), April 02, 1999.

We demand shrubbery. It is the only garnish worthy of accompanying rat.

-- neee (teehee@bizarreafficandos.com), April 02, 1999.

A pretty one.

-- pin----wigget! (infowars@yahoo.com), April 02, 1999.