Paula Wolfert’s Civet of Hare

[Steven Blaski]

OK. I’m thumbing giddily through the new Completed Updated “The Cooking of Southwest France.” The original edition is one of my favorite cookbooks of all time. After a while of browsing I come upon one of the newly added recipes — Civet Of Hare — and find out from the headnote that this recipe will be based on Paula’s favorite-ever bistro dining experience. Cool! Can’t wait to try it!

I scan the ingredients and immediately come across this: “See ‘To Cut Up a Hare or a Rabbit’ ... and Notes ... for handling the blood and liver”

All right, I read the sidebar about cutting up the hare. I’ve never done this, but it sounds easy. (Meanwhile, at the foot of my bed, my youngest cat, a beautiful Abyssinian named Dinah, looks up at me sweetly. Her fur is ticked exactly like a hare’s. She’s no bigger than a hare; in fact, from this angle she even looks like a hare .... But of course she’s not a hare.) So I read, as instructed, the “Notes to Cook.” Note #1 describes how you must thicken the sauce by pureeing the hare’s blood and the hare’s liver with cream.

After reading Note #2 I realize I will never cook this dish:

“If you have a fresh hare with its blood available, put 1-1/2 tablespoons aged red vinegar and 2 tablespoons red wine in a deep glass or ceramic bowl. Place rack on top and set the hare on it. Let all the blood fall into the bowl below ....” OK. Stop. Right. There. In my kitchen: a bunny: bleeding into a bowl? (All right, a hare it not exactly a bunny, but let’s not split hairs.) Uh-uh, I don’t think so. I mean, I could eat the hare, preferably if someone else cut it up and cooked it. And if Paula dropped by with the blood-thickened sauce I could probably eat that too. But actually bleed the little thing myself in a bowl on my kitchen counter? No. Just .... no.

I won’t even bother to explain the reasons (it's mainly a cultural thing) why I think I’d wuss out.

My question is: Is this something you could do?

[bleudauvergne]

I'd do it if I had a freshly hunted hare. Yes.

[bleudauvergne]

I've just received a message from someone I know in the States on this very topic. She says that jack rabbits (similar to hares) are hunted all over the US and most home cooks use the blood as described in Paula's recipe. I know that some people would not be able to bring themselves to process the animal at home, but there are many who would, given the chance.

[docsconz]

I believe that if one is going to eat the animals, one shouldn't gloss over the way they come to the table and that the more of the animal used in appropriate fashion the better. I could, therefore in the right circumstances such as preparing for a very special dinner, do what was described. That I don't typically do so is a matter of convenience and time. I respect those who do cook this way.

[ludja]

Enjoyable post Steve Blaski and a good question to pose in the "Adventures in Eating" forum. (I can picture feeling somewhat similarly queasy also having house cats about the size of rabbits at home...)

I haven't yet dressed or cooked any type of wild game so it would certainly be a challenge for me to try something like this.

Maybe this thread will spur someone to try this dish and then post their experience...

[touaregsand]

I'd do it. No biggy.

I don't really like cats.

[jackal10]

I have no problem with this.

However I was once very ill indeed after eating jugged hare. Although the illness may have had something to do with the large amount of scrumpy (rough hard cider) drunk at the same time, its one of the few dishes I actively avoid.

[ludja]

I have no problem with this.

However I was once very ill indeed after eating jugged hare. Although the illness may have had something to do with the large amount of scrumpy (rough hard cider) drunk at the same time, its one of the few dishes I actively avoid.

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Sorry for your experience...

I'd heard of the dish before but didn't really know how it was prepared.

click

jugged hare

A classic English preparation that begins with cut pieces of HARE that are soaked in a red wine-juniper berry marinade for at least a day. The marinated meat is well browned, then combined in a casserole (traditionally a heatproof crock or jug) with vegetables, seasonings and stock, and baked. When the meat and vegetables are done, the juices are poured off and combined with cream and the reserved hare blood and pulverized liver. The strained sauce is served over the "jugged" hare and vegetables.

[Eden]

not me. I understand clearly where my food comes from, but I'm a big softy when it comes to animals, so only naked (head free) meat enters my kitchen.

I don't however need it to arrive in shapeless blobs on packets of styrofoam, and I frequently gross out my wussier friends by cooking with feet, or referring to the "cooking juices" as blood

edited to add that I think it's fascinating that they're still serving this well known medieval dish in modern France!

Edited October 16, 2005 by Eden (log)

[Adam Balic]

I have not problem with blood or guts, so it would be an issue for me. When I was 5 or 6 I was given the job of bashing bunnies brains out, when the shooters hadn't killed them, so possibly it is a conditioning thing. I don't think that it is such a big deal that you don't care to prepare an animal that could be your pet, but I have little tolerance for a friend that can deal with the heads left on a fish.

What is more of an issue is that I couldn't get hare this fresh. The hare I can get (two different species infact) is well hung and this has caused an issue when cooking it in the house as it has a fairly potent aroma.

[jgm]

I believe that if one is going to eat the animals, one shouldn't gloss over the way they come to the table and that the more of the animal used in appropriate fashion the better. I could, therefore in the right circumstances such as preparing for a very special dinner, do what was described. That I don't typically do so is a matter of convenience and time. I respect those who do cook this way.

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Much of this quote expresses the way I feel. If I'm going to eat an animal, I think I have a responsibility to understand all of the processes involved to get it to my table, and to be willing to be part of or perform those processes myself.

That's where I begin to depart, but not as a philosophical matter, but as a practical matter.

It's sort of like how one reviewer viewed, many years ago, "The Whole Earth Catalog." I think it was described as being full of "things you wish you needed."

I think that I could, if faced with a freshly killed hare, do what is described in the recipe. (BTW I have four cats.) I would not relish it, and I would not enjoy it, but I would recognize that it would be the 'right' thing to do in that, anything I'm going to eat, I should at least be willing to prepare. And I think there is holiness in the Native American belief in using all of an animal to support one's own life. I have no disagreement with that. As a practical matter, though, my life is far, far removed from that kind of life. Those needs are not my needs.

I'm tempted to further digress into my lack of recognition of what really goes into the support of my current lifestyle, but that's off-topic.

In a nutshell, I think I could, after an honest talk with myself, do what is called for in the recipe. But I don't, realistically, see myself actually doing it. Life has a lot of interesting twists and turns, though, and it's not over yet. We'll see.

[carswell]

I won’t even bother to explain the reasons (it's mainly a cultural thing) why I think I’d wuss out.

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Talk about wussing out! Examining and discussing those reasons is the most interesting thing (maybe the only interesting thing) about this subject.

My question is: Is this something you could do?

I'm not a hunter so I've never actually had to face the question. But, yes, with a freshly killed hare, of course I would. Before the animal can be butchered, it has to be bled. Are you saying you'd just throw the blood away? If so, besides the gastronomic and nutritional sin you'd be committing, couldn't such wastefulness be construed as a mark of disrepect for the animal whose life had been sacrificed on the altar of your table?

The domestic hare I sometimes get from my butcher is frozen and when it thaws it releases a quantity of blood. Ditto frozen hunks of moose meat received from hunter acquaintances. (Thinking about this now, I wonder if it's because the animals aren't properly bled to begin with.) In such cases, could you use the blood in the final dish? Too bad if not; a civet of moose is one of the best things I've ever made or eaten.

The North American disconnect between living animals and meat is an astounding phenomenon, and because it arises from willful ignorance — a refusal or inability to deal with death, even when it sustains life — also a disturbing one. A friend of mine who gags at even the thought of eating boudin (blood sausage) or civet, always orders his steaks blood rare and takes great pleasure in sopping up the "juices" (i.e. blood) left on the plate. Is this anything other than cognative dissonance?

edit: clarity

Edited October 16, 2005 by carswell (log)

[docsconz]

Funny, before this thread, I always thought eating "civet" meant eating the animal of the same name that was purportedly involved in the Chinese SARS epidemic a few years back. Seriously, what does one specifically mean when using the word as it has been used in this topic?

[carswell]

Funny, before this thread, I always thought eating "civet" meant eating the animal of the same name that was purportedly involved in the Chinese SARS epidemic a few years back. Seriously, what does one specifically mean when using the word as it has been used in this topic?

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Civet sauce - what is it?

[docsconz]

Thanks. In that sense a true Coq au Vin would be a "civet" except that it is not considered wild game. When we made a "true" coq au vin with a recipe from Christian DeLouvrier we used coq's blood as a thickener. One dpertinent difference for this thread is that we didn't bleed it ourselves. It was done for us by the butcher.

[John S.]

My question is: Is this something you could do?

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I wouldn't even entertain eating blood. I went to a Phillipine fast-food place once. Some items looked good, some did not. I mentioned to the owner that I enjoyed Mexican food. She had pork dinuguan in one of the chafers and when I asked her what it was, she said "mole". Ha ha.

[docsconz]

My question is: Is this something you could do?

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I wouldn't even entertain eating blood.

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Why not? I'm just curious.

[divalasvegas]

I most definitely could not. I think that everyone has his/her own personal threshold of kitchen carnage. I can cut up whole poultry, gut and fillet whole fish, prep chitterlings (not the most pleasant thing in the world), or cut the faces off of live soft shell crabs. But that's it. I have no illusions as to how meat, fish or poultry gets to my table. Bleeding it in my kitchen? No way. Ditto for skinning anything.

[Steven Blaski]

I won’t even bother to explain the reasons (it's mainly a cultural thing) why I think I’d wuss out.

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Talk about wussing out! Examining and discussing those reasons is the most interesting thing (maybe the only interesting thing) about this subject.

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Hey, I fessed up to being a wuss already -- what more do you want?

I was just trying to introduce the topic and then step aside and see what people had to say. But OK, if you really want to know .... what I meant by "it's mainly a cultural thing" is that I wasn't raised to hunt and dress and bleed and skin my own dinner. Meat arrived in clean bloodless anonymous pieces under discreet plastic. But now I'm quite aware of where the meat I eat comes from and how it arrived, and I harbor no illusions about all that. I've since learned to do things like kill live lobsters and so forth, but as divalasvegas eloquently noted, there's a line of carnage one must draw in one's kitchen and I, so far, have chosen to draw it at bleeding an animal.

OK, so I'm STILL a wuss!

[jgm]

This is an interesting topic. For myself, I'd probably have a difficult time with this dish the first time, but by the time I'd prepared it the third or fourth time, I'd probably be fine with it.

I just finished watching "Babette's Feast" again, and then read the eGullet thread on the recipes for dishes in the film, which I had no trouble searching for a few days ago, and now can't find... (moderator, please feel free to jump in). I'm not sure how I'd do with preparing turtle soup, starting with a live turtle, but I wistfully watched and read about the various dishes, all prepared "from scratch." It was the same kind of wistfulness I felt reading Amanda Hesser's "The Cook and the Gardener." There are times when I feel something's missing, when the cooking process begins with bringing home neat little packages from the grocery.

Incidentally, when examining (for this thread) my own threshhold of willingness to deal with dead animals, still very much looking like animals, I remembered a conversation I had with co-workers a few years ago. We worked at the Coroner's office, and several in the group were directly involved in performing autopsies. We were startled to learn that none of us had any problem working with dead humans, but let us hear about a pet getting hurt, and we couldn't deal with it. And we didn't understand how veterinarians could.

So much of life depends upon your point of view...

[mizducky]

Y'know, I think I could do it. Once, at least. Just to say that I had personally done it and knew what was involved. In fact, I would like, sometime in my life, to be involved in a hunt with some hunting-for-subsistence-type hunters, and at least witness them as they properly skinned, cleaned, and butchered some of their bag, just so I could see how it was done.

Why I probably wouldn't want to do this kind of thing more than once is more pragmatic than anything else--from what I understand, the process can be an ungodly messy affair. Maybe I'm just a major klutz--no, wait, I *know* I'm a major klutz! Anyway, the few times I've cleaned and scaled a big fish all by myself, I was picking fish scales off of myself, the counter, the floor, everywhere, for what seemed like days afterward--those damn things just shot off everywhere. I can just feature myself dealing with little drips and dribbles of, erm, butchering procedings going similarly ballistic. Maybe one of the things I'd learn would be how to keep the mess manageable, I dunno. I just know myself, and know the mess would find me.

I used to know a woman up in the Puget Sound area who raised her own angora rabbits for both their fur (she was a spinner, weaver, and knitter) and for food. If I could get fresh rabbits from someone like that, I'd give it a whirl. At least once, as I said.

Slightly off on a tangent: I was in the local 99 Ranch market the other day and saw containers of fresh pig's blood in one of the butchers' cooler chests, along with all sorts of other intriguing porcine pieces (ears, snouts, trotters, tails, kidneys, tongue, belly, I don't remember what-all else)--it was the proverbial "everything but the oink" scenario right there before me. Yeah, it was already all nicely broken down into neatly-wrapped little packages ... but at least the ears and snouts and tails gave some clue that they did once hail from an actual critter, and not the Magic Unidentified Meat Factory.

This packaged pig's blood behaved quite interestingly, by the way. From a little distance it actually looks like liver; on closer inspection it appeared to have congealed/clotted/whatever into a wiggly mass. I may have to try cooking with it sometime if for no other reason than to learn more about its behavior as a food substance. (Yes, I am a geek. Why do you ask? )

[chefzadi]

I'd do it obviously. But I don't eat blood, it's not halal.

As far as killing an animal and doing the skinning, butchering, I've done that too. The largest was a sheep. My friend Phillipe from Normandy has slaughtered cows, skinned, butchered, etc...

Chickens, I snap the neck..

Cute widdle bunny, no problem.

[zilla369]

I just finished watching "Babette's Feast" again, and then read the eGullet thread on the recipes for dishes in the film, which I had no trouble searching for a few days ago, and now can't find... (moderator, please feel free to jump in). 

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Babette's Feast: Recipes

[Mallet]

I would have no problem with this at all, except that blood as a thickener never seems to work for me (it usually ends up coagulating into a ugly brown mess)!

[carswell]

I would have no problem with this at all, except that blood as a thickener never seems to work for me (it usually ends up coagulating into a ugly brown mess)!

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Hmmm. Do you spike the blood with a bit of vinegar? Also, do you warm the blood by adding an equal quantity of hot braising liquid to it a tablespoonful at a time? And once the warmed blood is added to the pot, do you heat it gently, briefly and never to — let alone beyond — the simmering point?