Rabbit heads

[Melissa Doordaughter]

We've been blessed with the gift of 2 rabbits by a local farmer. I've just finished cutting them up, and have plans for all the bits... except the heads!

Any suggestions? Would they make a good broth? I am a bit squeamish about eating the brains. ..

Thanks

[Lady Alinor]

Uh....Have you tried channeling Anthony Bourdain or Andrew Zimmern (sp?) They love eating all kinds of heads, eyeballs, check muscles and I hear they even like nibbling ears

Seriously, I'd think the heads would be useful in making stock.

[crystal woman]

Personally, it's not something I would eat and I would never encourage somebody else to try it.

I think you should do some research about the potential health hazards of eating animal brains so you can make an educated decision for yourself whether or not you want to take the risk. There are several animals that eating the brains of which can cause encephalopathic wasting diseases (mad cow disease is just one example but there are others). Most farmers and hunters are aware of this and will eat other organ meats but not the brains, and will not even handle brains except with rubber gloves on. I realize that in some cultures the brains of certain animals have been eaten (monkey brains for example) but as society has become more advanced in medical knowledge there is more has been learned about the brains of various animals as well as humans that indicates it can be hazardous to eat them.

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[Melissa Doordaughter]

Thanks for the input.

No, Crystal Woman, eating the brains isn't on my list of things to do today! But I would feel bad just throwing their heads in the bin.

[crystal woman]

I understand. Is it that you're wanting to show respect and just tossing the heads in the bin probably doesn't seem respectful to you .... or perhaps it seems wasteful? Do you have a garden? Is there someplace where you could bury the heads, where the worms and insects can pick the skulls clean and finish the job? In nature that is what would happen. The littlest creatures would eat all remaining flesh and the skull bones will eventually break down, crumble and add minerals to the earth. What goes around comes around.

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[sapphire kate]

Hmmm, are there problems with eating brains aside from mad cow disease? BSE originated from modern farming practices that include feeding cattle with their own species, something that doesn't happen in nature. Otherwise I think the spongiform brain diseases are incredibly rare in humans. AFAIK there is no scientific consensus on the cause of mad cow disease.

Europeans have a tradition of eating sheep heads. I think other places too.

Cats and dogs seem to enjoy rabbit heads, but usually the younger rabbits. Are they wild rabbits or farmed?

[crystal woman]

Hmmm, are there problems with eating brains aside from mad cow disease? BSE originated from modern farming practices that include feeding cattle with their own species, something that doesn't happen in nature. Otherwise I think the spongiform brain diseases are incredibly rare in humans. AFAIK there is no scientific consensus on the cause of mad cow disease.

Mmm hmmm, mad cow disease is just one prion related disease. This whole brain eating topic was one of the subjects we covered when I was in the cooking academy, we had a lot of information drilled into our heads and I don't remember what all the diseases are but there are other prion related transmissable encephalopathic diseases that can be contracted from eating the brains of certain animals.

Animals capable of transmission of spongiform encephalopathies that I recall off the top of my head include sheep, goats, (scrapie disease) cattle (BSE), elk, caribou, moose, all north american deer, (chronic wasting diseases) cats, (FSE) rabbits, minks, (TME) ostriches, nyala, greater kudu ..... and humans (kuru disease a.k.a laughing disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and fatal familial insomnia). There may be more but I don't remember what they all are. In North America it's well known in the hunting and farming communities to not eat the brains of animals, although they do get used for the tanning of animal skins.

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[sapphire kate]

I don't think scrapie causes disease in humans though. And again, leaving BSE aside for a moment, spongiform diseases are very rare in humans and we don't know why they happen.

Is that an old thing in the US to not eat brains, or is it since BSE?

[crystal woman]

Is that an old thing in the US to not eat brains, or is it since BSE?

I won't speak for the United States in it's entirety since I don't live there and I'm not familiar with all of their food traditions. I do know that some non-indigenous Americans (mostly in the southern and mid-west states) will eat just about anything, including some animals that most contemporary Canadians and northern states Americans wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole (for example - skunks, and bottom feeding fish and opposums which are foul carrion eaters, and armadillos which carry leprosy). But speaking for Canada, at least from the prairie provinces westwards and northwards it's very old knowledge going back hundreds of years to not eat animal brains. I suspect that much of that wisdom has been passed down from the indigenous natives of Canada and America and the wisdom was adopted by the earliest settlers from the old world. They might not have known about prion diseases or what prions were at that time but they certainly knew something about the inherent hazards of eating brains and certain other animal parts and they passed that knowledge along.

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[sapphire kate]

Sorry about the US thing

I'm curious now, about the differences between North America and Europe. Maybe it's the different kinds of animals. Or maybe the brains were prioritised for tanning.

We're trying to get people here to eat possum, because there are too many of them. But they're a different possum I think and I've not heard of them eating carrion. Of course most people here won't even eat rabbit because we're meant to be above all that now

[Sashamarts]

this topic has intrigued me... I can say that I know of no one - indiginous or otherwise- here in the US that eats any sort of brains. I also was really interested in all these various prion diseases, having never heard of any except mad cow, so i just googled and it looks like there are many "signs" pointing to these diseases being transferred to humans, but since they can't be conclusivly proven, no one can really say for sure

[cataway]

There is a lady in my town who likes pig brains, when there is a pig roast the head is served to her with great ceremony and then the rest of us look on in horror as she digs in , not sure if she does this for shock value or what but eeek!

[crystal woman]

There is a lady in my town who likes pig brains, when there is a pig roast the head is served to her with great ceremony and then the rest of us look on in horror as she digs in , not sure if she does this for shock value or what but eeek!

I know there are a lot of people of European descent who do like to eat pigs brains. Head cheese is a type of gelatinized chunky meat pate made from organ meats and the entire head of a pig (with or without the brains) - the pig's head and skull bones produces a wonderfully tasty gelatin that binds all the meats together very firmly. My mom used to make headcheese from pig's heads but she removed and discarded the brains and eyeballs before cooking it all down. She made a lot of it every year and then froze it all in containers but she didn't call it head cheese, she called it potted meat. I think it sounded more polite to her to call it potted meat.

I wouldn't want to eat pigs brains just considering all the castoffs and meat offal (including whole dead animals and small animal heads) that many farmers give to their pigs in their feed. A pig's brain is too much like the human brain, I'd suspect it of carrying some of the same prions that the human brain carries and are known to cause diseases in cannibals. Most animals won't cannibalize their own species but chickens and pigs will if given the opportunity.

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[Lady Alinor]

Many 'ancient' peoples believed that the Spirit resided in the skull and brain so eating those parts was taboo. Warriors could and would collect and sometimes preserve the heads of the fallen enemy as a way of possessing the power and knowledge of the fallen.
I read of an ancient site where many outward facing skulls were found around the perimeter of the 'family/clan' compound. I think the site was pre-Roman era I don't recall if it was decided that the skulls were enemy or perhaps dead community members protecting the compound and it's inhabitants.

I won't even cook a fish with it's head still attached

[Melissa Doordaughter]

Well-one of my first thoughts was to bury the heads with a ceremony, facing east: this is an idea I got from Arctic cultures....

But then yesterday spoke to one of my students, who is a vet, and he assured me that rabbit heads are fit for both animal and human consumption. So we gave them to the dogs. Less mystical but also more practical, and I feel on an energetic level that we have already thanked the spirits of the animals.

I am quite squeamish about the idea of all offal, but brains especially. But still I feel really lucky to have the chance to learn about preparing meat and cutting up the carcass myself. These animals are raised on a small local farm, for personal use, not sold commercially. My husbands vegetarian but personally I think the importance is about the quality of life of the animal, and right attitude in consumption.