Why no frozen rabbit?

[Anna N]

I am very curious why frozen rabbit does not appear in my supermarkets. Every now and then fresh rabbit is available but it is very iffy. I see it offered this week at one of my supermarkets but from a meal planning point of view I find that I can't really fit it in this week. Is there a reason that one cannot find frozen rabbit when I can find many other frozen meats?

[budrichard]

Frozen rabbit is available in many ethnic groceries. It ALL comes from China. I don't touch it. You have to search for domestic rabbit. If you have a local live market, they often have rabbit which is where I procure mine from.-Dick

[Peter the eater]

My Loblaws equivalent gets fresh and frozen rabbits with no discernible pattern. My butcher in the Annapolis Valley raises and sells both. I don't think the fresh meat ages too well.

[mbhank]

The Vons market in Southern Calif., where I live, carried frozen rabbit regularly. They remodeled the store a few years back and shifted the meat dept. personnel to other stores and the rabbit disappeared. The new personnel and management claimed to have never seen frozen rabbit in their lives. I brought in the box with the Vons label on it and a manager claimed to have never seen rabbit in his 30 years with the company.

I gave up and get it either fresh (mainly fresh) and rarely frozen from Whole Foods.

[AAQuesada]

FWIW Puritan Poultry at the Original Farmer's Market carries rabbit as does Surfas (Frozen)and of coarse Harvey's Gus Meat . I know they are a trek for you, and Harvey's purveyor who takes phone orders from the public, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[technogypsy]

The Central Markets in both Plano and Fort Worth carry it and will always order it for you. There are also folks who raise and sell them locally - they also have frozen ones. Then there is always the grasslands with a .22LR.

[Sam Iam]

Toledo's Fresh Market had two in their freezer yesterday.

[blue_dolphin]

I see frozen rabbit in grocery stores pretty often.

Most comonly from the Pel-Freez company.

[Porthos]

I see frozen rabbit in grocery stores pretty often.

Most comonly from the Pel-Freez company.

What store?

[mr drinkie]

In Minnesota, Byerly's carries frozen rabbit but it is very expensive. I miss the days when I lived in Washington, DC and could get cheap fresh rabbit at Eastern Market whenever I wanted it. It was something like $2 a pound in DC if I remember correctly.

By the way, here is a great recipe for rabbit that I tried several months back. It is from David Tanis at Chez Panisse. Good stuff.

Rabbit in Mustard Sauce

[TongoRad]

As an extended family we have used the Pel-Freez rabbits since I can remember (which would put it back to the 1970s, though I suspect it goes further back than that) in the NYC Metro area. I bet my Aunt Rose still uses them for every Christmas dinner that she prepares- it's a traditional dish for us.

My parents discovered a way to get fresh rabbit at the local German pork stores in the late 80's, and switched over at that time; they did have to be ordered in advance, though. Even more recently that that you could just show up at the Fairway market and get a fresh one out of the case, no special ordering.

In this area, at least, you could pretty easily get both frozen and fresh.