Eating Rat

As a would-be social reformer and committed zoophagist --- an eater of unusual animals --- [Frank] Buckland was convinced of the double benefits of putting rat meat on the national menu: not only would it help relieve the hunger of the poor, it would also ease the infestations that plagues every city in the world.

"It is not generally known what good eating young rats are," he wrote, with a lack of squeamishness inherited from his father .... who regularly plied his dinner guests with dog, panther, crocodile and hedgehog, as well as with canapés of toasted field-mice.

--- From a Review of
To Sea and Back
Richard Hamblyn
London Review of Books
25 February 2010