[Sca-cooks] Fw: More gerbil madness

Tue Feb 22 17:55:18 PST 2005

Craig Jones wrote:
> 
> > So, there you have it. Wherever your friend got the 
> > recipe, it was essentially ripped off from "Soup for 
> > the Qan", with some minor stuff added and changed 
> > so that it might "look" authentic.
> 
> And I'm really glad of this... I already have a lot of 
> trouble convincing friends and household to try Mongolian 
> food.  Serving up gerbils (not that you can get marmots, 
> gerbils, or hamsters here at all (rabbits were bad enough, 
> small rodents would probably breed here like tribbles) is 
> likely to push the whole lot screaming over a culinary 
> abyss...

Perhaps if you started them off easy on a nice low angle 
slope ... such as "Rat on a Stick".  

I've quoted a good bunch of ideas 
... a bunch of good ideas 
... still doesn't sound quite right 
... I have _no_ idea why.  <g> 

Anyway, all that I have is quoted (from the 'Time of No 
Archives') is a little further down in this message... 

> I've just got them eating the nicer recipes from ASFTQ 
> and drinking kumiss (bastardized from Cow's milk). 
> Gerbils? Nyuh...
> 
> Drakey.

Vincenzo

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========================Rat on a Stick Recipes======================== 
====================================================================== 

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] RE: Rat recipes
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 08:15:25 -0400
From: vongraph <vongraph at comcast.net>

AS served at Harper's Rest Tavern, Trimaris

Rat on a stick. making aprox 100 one third pound "rats"

grind 11 pounds of pork shoulder

grind 22 pounds of beef

combine the two meats and mix well, while mixing add two dozen eggs and
three one pound boxes of unseasoned bread crumbs (for firming mixture)

also during mixing add one pound of dates chopped fine. and three packages
of onion soup mix (not three boxes)

add three tablespoons of salt and four table spoons of pepper (or to
personal taste)

Weight out portions of 1/3 pound each, shape to vaguely "rat" shape add
raisins for eyes. you can now freeze the "rats" in freezer bags (I freeze
eight to a bag so they lay flat in freezer)

Prep: After thawing place previously soaked "stick" (shiskabob sticks soaked
for couple hours in water) into rat (end without eyes) and cook. This
process makes for numerous comments and jokes to relax staff.

Cooking at 350 - 375 degrees for aprox 1 and one half hours or until done
depending on oven. We cook them in large propane fired smoker and turn out
about sixty per batch. if your rotating the meat as you cook (in other words
some going in as the cooked meat comes out you put in say twenty rats then
fifteen minutes later put in another twenty then fifteen minutes later put
in another twenty (use whatever number of rats fit in your cooker, divided
by three), this way about forty five minutes after the last group are put in
the cooker the first group are ready to serve. You remove the first goup put
in cooker and replace them with more to be cooked. this way every fifteen
minutes you can remove cooked rats. With a 30 to 45 minute break between the
first fifty and the second fifty. if your able to use two cookers you can
space out the entry and have hot rats coming out every 15 minutes by
starting the first group in the second cooker 15 minutes after the last
group in the first cooker.

If you keep rats in warmer be sure to use water tray to prevent drying.
competitive price per Rat should be aprox $3.00 with 900  to 1000 people
at event we sell about 150 rats a day, but we are selling eight other menue
items as well and we only serv form 10:30 until about 4:30. Good luck in
your endevor.

YIS, Elric, Harper's Raid Tavern

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Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] RE: Rat recipes
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 08:37:15 -0400
From: "Siegfried Heydrich" <baronsig at peganet.com>

    Actually, the best way to do them is in a smoker with moist heat. If you
must do them in an oven, put a water pan in with them. Smoking makes the
meat very moist and succulent, and also makes the meat a reddish color that
seriously freaks people out, too.

    You can use really cheap cuts for this if you're grinding your own meat,
which I highly recommend - we generally get the 99 cent a pound briskets at
Wal-Mart. Don't bother trimming them, you want the fat that's on the
briskets in there. Get whatever pork is on sale - right now, you can get
pork shoulders on sale for 49 cents a pound, and even with a 30% shrinkage,
it's still priced right, and the bones make for great stock.

    If you have time when prepping them, put a half a walnut in the nose of
the rat, and cover it with meat. People generally bite the nose off first,
and if there's something in there that goes *crunch* and feels suspiciously
like cartilage, you'll get some seriously amusing reactions . . . Something
else you can do (if you're going for maximum freak factor) is dip stick
pretzels in beaten egg, and then work into the rats. They'll retain enough
texture and crunch to feel like small bones, which also provokes amusing
responses.

    If you're doing this as a fund raiser at a medieval fair or the like,
work out a schtick with the Ratcatcher, and really blow people away . . .

    Sieggy

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Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] RE: Rat recipes
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 09:28:38 -0700
From: Susan Fox-Davis <selene at earthlink.net>

NANNY OGG'S COOKBOOK by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs & Tina Hannan,
illustrated by Paul Kidby.  A tie-in with Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series,
includes Rat On A Stick along the line of Elric's product, portable meatloaf
with raisin eyes.  As usual, I'm at work and the book is at home [I'm needing a
new acronaym for that - IAWBAH]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385600054/ref%3Dpd%5Fsim%5Fbooks/103-9962832-8798206

How about Rat-atouille? <snerk>

Selene Colfox

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Subject: [Sca-cooks] A new spin on "Rat on a stick"
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 17:01:32 -0400
From: "Martin G. Diehl" <mdiehl at nac.net>

Greetings, 

[I know this is just barely food related ... but I just 
couldn't resist sharing <g>]

In the past, I have seen recipes and comments here on 
SCA-Cooks about how to make "Rat on a stick".  

It would seem there is some historic precedent for this 
concept ... for another spin on "Rat on a stick", please 
see Abessinia's "A Hungry Handrail" at 
http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=519812&Start=1&Artist=Abessinia&ByArtist=Yes

... also Abessinia's "Knocker: Entrance of St. Gereon, 
Cologne" at 
http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=519819&Start=1&Artist=Abessinia&ByArtist=Yes

Abessinia's Gallery (including other images from 
Cologne Cathedral) is found at 
http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=Abessinia 

Please enjoy ... 

Vincenzo

======================================================================= 

-- 
Martin G. Diehl

http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=MGD

Reality: That which remains after you stop thinking about it.
  inspired by P. K. Dick