Tondeleo: After seeing the rabbit boxes on Doc's property, I became curious as to how to prepare rabbits for eating. When I asked Doc and Marilyn how to cook rabbits, they both stared at me with credulity. They could not imagine that a person would not know how to cook a rabbit!
I explained to them that we DO eat rabbits in England, and that we probably eat more rabbit than the average American. In fact, even in our butcher shops in the cities have dressed out rabbits hanging in their shop windows. It just happens that I personally don't know how to cook rabbit. My mum does, but I am curious as to how Doc and Marilyn prepare rabbits. So, with my dignity intact I was ready to record Doc and Marilyn's suggestions for cooking rabbit.
Doc: Here's one way to cook rabbits, Tondy. You skin the rabbits, and cut off his head and feet. Get rid of his guts - his 'testines, stomach and all that. Take out his lungs, heart, liver and kidneys and set them aside for making gravy with. On the liver there's a greenish part you have to cut off real careful. It has bile in it and you don't want to eat that. You also cut his body in half and pull out his rib cage to use in making the gravy.
Then you cut off his legs. Take his hips and shoulders and cut them in half. Now you got like eight pieces. Get some carrots and onions and cut them up. Put some water in a pot, maybe two cups and boil it and then turn the heat back. Put in the parts that you cut off first, the heart and liver and all that, and let it simmer for a while. Cut up four potatoes and put them in and let them cook, too. Put the carrots in and boil them too.
Go watch some TV for a half hour or play some guitar and sing some songs. That's what me an' Marilyn do. After a half hour, take out a fryin' pan and put in some bacon grease or lard for cookin'. Put in some woostersheer (Worcestershire) sauce and a lot of black pepper. Put in the onions, a little bit of garlic and some milk. Maybe about an inch of milk, if you had it in a coffee mug. That much.
When the onions are cooked, then you put in the rabbit parts and cook them in the same pan, not all the way through, just 'til they are brown. Then, put everything from the pan into the pot where you been cookin' the potatoes and carrots. Keep the heat kinda low. It'll need about an hour.
We get out another pot and boil up some greens in it. Put in greens, it might be mustard greems, turnip greens, spinach or kale, and put in some red pepper and some pork. Mostly we use ham hocks or pigs feet for flavor. Let it boil down for about an hour.
Go play some more music and sing for about a hour. Then get out your bowls and plates and sweet tea. You prob'ly don't know how to make it and' Marilyn can tell you how to do that right.
Marilyn: Me an' Uncle Doc likes rabbit burgers, too. Rabbit ain't got any fat on it like beef does, so it's good for you, Tondy. All we do is grind up the rabbit meat, and sometimes we cut up some bacon and mix in with it because you need some fat to hold it together. Without fat, it calls apart in the pan and all you can do with it is mix in some barbecue sauce and make it like barbecue. We cut up some onions real fine and put in black pepper. We ain't use no salt cause we gotta keep Uncle Doc's blood pressure low. We mix in a raw egg to help hold it together, too.
Then I make it into a ball about the size of a baseball and flat it down to less than a inch thick. Then I fry them up in a pan with some bacon grease and onions. It's better than a hamburger, Tondy. Ask Uncle Doc.
