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On Wed., July 2, Margaret said:

>> Hare/rabbit was not eaten, don't know why (social/moral taboo against
eating
>> something perceived as cowardly and dumb?).

>Well, if you're talking about the early Celtic peoples of Britian, they
>didn't eat rabbit because rabbits didn't exist in England much before
>the Normans.  I believe they were a Norman import  (again, working from
>memory, I believe the source is Ann Wilson's Food and Drink in Britian)

>toodles, margaret

Rabbit and hares in Britain before the Normans was discussed on the Rialto
a while ago. This message from Adamantius is from this file in the ANIMALS
section of my SCA Rialto Files:

rabbits-msg       (14K)  2/28/96    Medieval rabbits. As pets and food.

Since even if the rabbits were gone, there were still the wild hares, there
may still have been a taboo that kept the British Celts from eating them.
Although it could be a matter of taste rather than an explicit taboo.
Even though there really isn't an explicit taboo about eating cats, dogs
and horses in the United States, they still are rarely eaten here.

Stefan li Rous
markh at risc.sps.mot.com

(My files are at: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/rialto/rialto.html

====================
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 11:24:06 -0400
From: troy at asan.com (Philip W. Troy)
Subject: Re: Rabbits as Food (was Rabbits in Period)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

manth at ozemail.com.au (Aramanth Dawe) wrote:

> jmackie at sharra.otago.ac.nz (LabRat) wrote:
> 
> >if you are in england between the romans and the normans then
> >rabbits are out.  the romans wiped them out, the normans reintroduced
> >them.  not sure what date the romans finally manged to wipe them out
> >but certainly before the 600AD start of SCA period.
> 
> >keep well
> >jays
> 
> If anyone knows _how_ the Romans managed to wipe out rabbits, even in
> such a relatively small area as England, there are a few thousand
> farmers in Australia who would be _very_ interested!
> 
> Aramanth

I'd have to say that if the Romans managed to "wipe out" rabbits in
Britain, it was presumably prior to 410 C.E. .

On the other hand, hares appear to have been unaffected throughout. True,
they aren't the same as rabbits, but they are largely interchangable from
a culinary standpoint, apart from their size.

Adamantius
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