Nutria For Dinner

That big rat that invaded my former Louisiana is making a more pleasant scene in Russia theses days. They are eating and loving the nutria as  gourmet fare in places like Moscow. Wow!  Southwest Louisiana's citizens find nutria annoying not tasty. For years restaurants tried to sell nutria dishes to diners in Cajun towns of Louisiana, but the locals knew that nutria meat is tough and without an identity. They said, "No thanks" to nutria stew and the rest. When New Orleans chefs tried to sell it in their restaurants the locals laughed and ignored it. 

So outside of the swamps and bayous of Louisiana, where nutria is eaten out of necessity, that ratty meat is dead in the U.S,. Eating nutria  not only never quite caught on in the Bayou State, but Louisiana had to implement a bounty program to curtail populations of the marsh-eating rodents. The millions of nutria in Louisiana nutria eat plants and marsh and other habitat so fast that millions were appropriated to pay hunters $4.00 per nutria tail when turning in their bounty for reward. This pleases rice and sugar cane growers in the state who claim the nutria destroy their crops, like.....well, the rats they are.  Every dead nutria  a trapper turned in produced a bounty for the hunter. It's worked to keep those rats from taking over whole portions of the state.

That's not the case in Russia, where Muscovites are devouring nutria fare in chic restaurants. One establishment, Moscow's Krasnodar Bistro, serves nutria burgers, nutria sausage and nutria dumplings wrapped in cabbage leaves to diners who just can't get enough of the whiskered rodents guess they don't ask their diners, "Are you enjoying your rat meat"?  But the owner  of that Bistro, Takhir Kholikberdiev, says diners have no qualms about eating something called a "river rat" in other parts of the world. "It's a really clean animal," he said. "Not only is it a herbivore, but it washes all its food before it eats. And it's very high in omega-3 acids. A lot of doctors and dietitians recommend it."

He said the meat is also more forgiving than that of other animals. Rabbits tend to dry out quickly, he said, but nutria remain succulent even when slightly overcooked. The nutria burger at Krasnodar Bistro is served on a chopping board with a soft bun and plenty of relish. It costs 550 rubles, which is about $8.25.

I say, "Thank God someone will eat Nutria"! Well, having been to Russia and eaten their food, I must say that a plate of rat may be an improvement on much of what the Russians chew. Nutria were imported into the country in the 80's and now live in the wild in southern Russia, where they were raised for fur to meet the fur demands of upper crust residents of the nation's big cities. Although the pelts were in demand, the flesh was not, so it was only consumed by local peasants. Nutria stew is the favored faire in those small villages. I have had it and once was enough. So if you ask, What's for dinner", and the answer is "Nutria", run like a rat.