Jellied Wabbit
Because our search for a new restaurant to be “ours” for special occasions, ongoing since the change of management at Roberto’s, has only met with near success, Eileene wants to make dinner on Valentine’s Day. At my suggestion, she’ll try her hand at the rabbit she bought on impulse a week ago. I don’t even know where. We looked over a few recipes online last night, and I’m inclined to a simple roasting, though I’m fond of rabbit stew, too. More elaborate dishes don’t seem designed to do justice to the rabbit itself, seasoned so heavily that it may as well be the more familiar beef, pork, or chicken. One recipe, courtesy of Mario Batali, is even titled “rabbit cooked like a Tuscan pig.” We couldn’t resist checking out hasenpfeffer recipes, which didn’t seem to have anything in common beyond rabbit and an oven. No, not even pepper, though the name literally means “peppered hare.” Hasenpfeffer must be one of those dishes, like turkey stuffing and cheesecake, that are unique to each cook, and can spark long, pointless debates over which version is authentic.
(Technically, I should say I couldn’t resist checking out hasenpfeffer recipes. Eileene had never heard of hasenpfeffer, having no appreciation for the pinnacle of western culture that is Chuck Jones animated shorts.)
All this attention to rabbit recipes has forced my memory, unwilling, back to a book I read a few years ago on a lark. I don’t remember the title any longer, but it purported to be a compendium of weird and even repulsive dishes, though the author in fact endorsed them all. The book is a few decades old, and seems quite tame after the flowering of international cuisine. Tongue and brain don’t seem so terrifying next to some of the things offered daily in Manhattan, and even jellyfish is no longer an unthinkable entrée. Unpalatable, yes, but not unthinkable.
As the keen reader has surely realized, the most horrible dish described in the book was rabbit. Jellied rabbit. A whole rabbit or hare is cleaned and stewed in a roasting pan with a sizeable helping of lard and pectin. These elements cook down into a greasy soup. The bones are fished out, and the remainder chilled, causing it to set into a jelly, and served cold, doubtless spooned out with a soft schlup noise. The main seasoning is anise.
Why, of all things, anise?