Rats!

Eating rats.
Rural southern Cambodia.

We decided to tag along with a Cambodian-American friend of ours to a rural area in the southeast near the Vietnam border. He was returning, after decades, to see his aging parents and family who had survived the Khmer Rouge years. The plan was to throw a big party with 100 Buddhist monks as a blessing for the elderly parents ... and for entertainment. No TV out here.



After hours on a bumpy dirt road, crouched in the back of a covered pick-up, passing rural villages, we arrived at the family home. Armed guards and an army of excited, curious children greeted us. We were led into a guest room, and told to stay put. It took a while for word to get back to us, but here was the deal -- road bandits had murdered some neighbors the previous night. My father and I were clearly foreigners, which means we must be carrying bundles of cash, so for everyone's safety, we were instructed to stay indoors or out of sight in the covered yard. For a day or two or three, depending on when they felt the road was safe. We had 5 armed guards and even still the local provincial mayor came by to tell us everything was safe ... as long as we stayed out of sight.

But the monk party would continue as scheduled.



There was no electricity in these parts, and so I psyched myself up for a couple days of quiet living. But then came the generators. BROOOMMMMMMM!!! Lights were strung up in our room (with no off switch) and cacophonous Cambodian Buddhist music was cranked up and left on all night and day. A TV with kung fu flicks, and I think Rambo, ironically, was brought in for the kids.

In these parts, the food comes from the fields. Flooded fields full of frogs, eels, and rats. I've had plenty of frogs and eels before, so I won't go into that, but this was the first time I'd dined on rat. These are not city rats, they're big fat field rats.



They were BBQ'd well done and (I've never used this before, OK) they tasted like chicken. Tough, stringy, BBQ-chicken-style rats. I suppose I could have stuck to the frogs and eels but this was as close I'd come to weird meat as a necessity. There were no shops here, and we hadn't brought enough food for our unexpected extended stay. Our Cambodian friends told us stories of what "weird foods" they ate to survive the darkest years under the regime. Rats seemed like a fortunate feast compared to some of these. And my fear and discomfort as we waited for a safe road out seemed petty.

(Seen the movie "The Killing Fields"? The man drinking blood from a live cow ... it's not fiction)

We left the next day, straight back to Phnom Penh. On the ride, we completely covered ourselves with traditional kramas (big scarves) to avoid unwanted attention. We did, however, stop along a safer section of road to get some fruit and here I found a man hunting for rats. They have a special stick -- a long pole with a hook -- to catch the rats. I asked if the rats were for sale but the man seemed pretty proud of his catch. Some of them had guts spilling out, which looked kinda icky.



I'd eat rats again, even if not by necessity. These are not filthy city rats, they're filthy field rats, if that makes them more appetizing for you.

* Addition July 2007 ... With all the flooding going on in south and central China this summer, the rats and mice of the fields are heading north and causing trouble. So authorities are asking people to eat them to keep the numbers down.

* Addition September 2008 ... With the current global food shortages, people are eating more rats.