Hunters take advantage of the field rats’ reliable presence and sell their bounty to local roadside vendors or export it to Vietnam. In Cambodia, sellers cook the rat over charcoal and serve it accompanied by dipping sauces made from lime juice and black pepper or fish sauce and chilies. The skin is salty and rich, similar to roast chicken, while the meat itself has the savoriness of pork. Most Cambodians pair it with a local lager, such as Angkor. And no you don't eat the tail.
post
Anyone who's read Terry Pratchett knows that rats on a stick are a well-beloved street food in Ankh-Morpork!
Among the dwarves, anyway. Most humans seem to prefer a sausage inna bun, though the way Dibbler's food is described, I think the dwarves might be better off.
The best is at Gimlet's Hole Food Delicatessen
On a King’s ship they’d grill them and serve them with onion sauce.
I’ve got a recipe.
Babbington looked wretchedly from one to the other, licked his lips and said, ‘I ate your rat, sir. I am very sorry, and I ask your pardon.’
‘Did you so?’ said Stephen mildly. ‘Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Listen, Jack, will you look at my list, now?’
'He only ate it when it was dead,’ said Jack.
‘It would have been a strangely hasty, agitated meal, had he ate it before,’ said Stephen.
Wow those rats are HUGE. This is AFTER they've been barbecued so they'll have had heads and fur removed and shrunk from moisture loss and they still look that big. Wouldn't want to find one of those things before they're barbecued.
These are bamboo rats. They grow pretty big. Some are grown in farms.
Bamboo rats go through three stages when eating bamboo. The initial phase is the quick motion of the bamboo entering the rat’s mouth. The intermediate phase is the movement of the teeth chewing the bamboo and the final stage is the state of the rats’ teeth right after eating the bamboo.
Um, what?
luckily its native species instead of the nasty brown or black rats, or even the polynesian rat.
I'd give it a try
Apparently, it tastes like chicken.
Can't decide if I would. They look good, but... rats.
Cambodian field rats, specifically. The kids go through sugar cane fields to hunt them. They're a dietary staple there. They aren't like sewer rats, and probably taste a bit like pork. They're probably healthier animals than most of the meat you'd get in the US would be. If you're ever in SE Asia and have the opportunity, highly encourage you to try one.
It's not the odd animal that bothers me. It's just that I know rats are huge carriers of serious diseases while living that I'm not sure if they'd still be dangerous to eat after cooking.
Are they? I think the plague was spread by their fleas rather than the rats themselves, not sure about other diseases though. Eating chicken raw isn't good for you either, so I am not sure if its much point in comparing them while alive.
Kidney beans are pretty bad for you in their raw state too.
Well I have no idea if it is dangerous or not. I'd have to investigate further.
Even if technically fleas may have spread the disease, they were still located on and being carried by the rats. Hantavirus is a huge dangerous one that rats can spread. There are others too as well as parasitic infections.
Same bacteria produce toxins and even after cooking it, the bacteria are destroyed, but the toxins remain. But it depends on the type of bacteria. It's how some types of food poisoning works.
But yeah if all of these still mean that rats are safe to eat when cooked thoroughly, I'm on board. I just don't know enough about cooked rats and quite frankly I don't feel like investigating more since there is no one selling cooked rats by me lol.
Well I have no idea if it is dangerous or not. I’d have to investigate further.
"but I'm still going to publicly share my opinions on it first"
I hate the internet, and yet I can't seem to stop logging on. FML
I mean, this isn't a scientific research lab or anything. It's a casual conversational community lol.
Lol yeah don't worry too much about it.
Not like this comment was your grand presentation at the International Edible Carrion Science Conference 2025 or something. :p
more concerned with the brown rat since they are the host of the oriental rat flea, aka carriers of the plague.
Once you skin'em, they don't look much differ'nt than a skwrl, and e'rybody ets skwrl alla time.
Always wondered how much meat was on a rat. Thought about squirrel hunting, but I just can't kill for a single burrito worth of meat. And yes, I get that they're eating pests in this case.
Up through WWI, there was an official war on squirrels, which ran for the previous 400 years. There were often bounties on squirrels in many places.
The iconic cookbook The Joy of Cooking included directions to skin a squirrel, with recipes, until just a few decades ago.
Mark as NSFW maybe
Edit: literal fucking burnt corpses of animals, but sure guys - keep making fun of me
So many sexy, scantily clad rats.
Do you work in Cambodia and don't want colleagues to know about your favorite snack ?
At least a content warning for animal gore would've been nice
Would you expect the same of a roast chicken?
That would be nice yes. People who eat meat are desensitized to the image. Others find it disturbing.
Eating meat is a standard human experience, and while some have chosen not to eat meat, the fact others do shouldn't require censorship.
A reasonable human being can expect to see prepared food at restaurants, on people walking around while eating, on advertisements, at the grocery store, at street food vendors... And in this photo on the side of the road
Pictures of prepared food are also work safe, because a reasonable person would encounter such sights at work lunches, catering, in the kitchen, etc.
Therefore I don't think it's reasonable to ask Lemmy to censor pictures of prepared foods.
Depends where you are from. If you are Hindu in India meat is not standard. Lots of vegetarians in that regian as well as Jain diet followers.
Then you have South Korean dog farms, so if we were posting strung up dogs people would be freaking out of NSFW tags.
Its all relative to desensitization.
im not saying you have to or should be forced to NSFW tag those images, but it can be highly distruving for a large number of people.
Like some friends love meat but if I shown them how you disembowel the rabbit or duck before cooking they'd be barfing
Do you ever go with your friends to dinner? Do you expect them not to eat meat in front of you?
We are here on Lemmy sharing human experiences, it's not reasonable to ask people to censor those experiences when they're in the range of normal acceptable experiences for most people.
The original message I was just explaining why, as a westerner of course I'm exposed to meat. (I used to hunt with my dad) And friends are going to order meat at a restaurant.
Meat gets 'sanitized' from the animal though, by name and visually.
Many meat eaters I know are fine with cuts, but are revolted by the actual images of prepped animals.
There was a huge controversy in a city I lived in, before vegetation/veganism became popular, the local newspaper showed a butcher carrying in small dead pigs over his shoulder to supply the shop. People were outraged " how dare he, think of the children, etc". If we had cancel culture back then that butcher would be ruined. The city still went there for their sliced ham though.
Some people just don't want it in their face.
Yes, is it so bad that I don't like seeing dead animals? I block all the non-vegan food communities for this exact reason. Lemmy probably would've freaked out over a picture of a skinned and fried dog, I don't see a difference.
Shops and general society don't care about roast chickens on public display, it isn't NSFW. So an NSFW tag would be inappropriate.


top 78 comments