# Anyone ever eaten a predatory mammal? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 28, 2011, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574 "2011-07-28T01:51:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JFLuvly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac91a4/32.png) [@JFLuvly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JFLuvly)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2011, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/21 "2011-07-28T20:34:28Z")
Bobcat, kinda stringy white meat but tasty. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/22 "2011-07-28T21:51:16Z")
> [@Panurge](#): > > I’ve had smoked bear. It had a very rich, full flavor - excellent with šljivovica on the side. On the one hand, that sounds great. On the other - with enough šljivovica , _everything_ is excellent. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/23 "2011-07-28T23:39:43Z")
Possums (opossums technically) are omnivorous. I’ve never eaten one, but the recipe I have says to feed them a diet of persimmons for several weeks before slaughter. There might be other omnivores that I’ve eaten, but I can’t think of one at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/24 "2011-07-28T23:52:56Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > No, because chickens aren’t mammals. Oh sure, catch me on a technicality… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/25 "2011-07-29T00:22:58Z")
> [@Mewl\_Dear](#): > > No snickering teen jokes please Killjoy. ---
**Author:** ![Apollon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47774/32.png) [@Apollon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollon)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/26 "2011-07-29T01:04:08Z")
My grandmother had cat during WW2. According to her, it tasted like rabbit, but tougher. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/27 "2011-07-29T01:23:10Z")
I’ve had bear. Wasn’t all that great. Shark, OTOH, properly marinated and grilled is delicious. (Hey, they _eat_ mammals. That oughta count for something.) ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/28 "2011-07-29T01:37:31Z")
I have had both spring and fall black bear, the spring bear was pretty good kind of gamey, usually cooked in heavily seasoned dishes like chili or spaghetti. The fall bear was near inedible, tasted like the rotten salmon it had been gorging on. Bobcat spaghetti, was different but good, like if you made spaghetti out of ground pork. It really did a number on my GI tract the next day. I had a brown bear that lived far from salmon streams in the tundra, it was some of the best meat I have eaten. The problem was that it has to be cooked well done, as all wild omnivores should. It seemed like a waste of some really good steaks. ---
**Author:** ![Panurge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@Panurge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panurge)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/29 "2011-07-29T07:31:27Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > On the one hand, that sounds great. On the other - with enough šljivovica , _everything_ is excellent. True. I think it would go well with red wine, too. It was served by itself in very thin slices along with serrano ham, manchego, olives, ayvar, bread, olive oil, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/30 "2011-07-29T08:40:14Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#): > > There’s a reason we don’t eat them. Tastes nasty. Even omnivorous animals who gave been eating a lot of flesh are pretty unbearable. According to author Jared Diamond, lion mean is pretty darn tasty. There are also people who still eat seals and whales which are also carnivorous mammals. Then there’s some of the smaller omnivore/carnivorous animals that people in North America used to eat (and some still do I imagine). ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/31 "2011-07-29T10:14:04Z")
I’m pretty sure I’ve had dolphin. Tastes like tuna. /rimshot ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/32 "2011-07-29T11:16:08Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#): > > There’s a reason we don’t eat them. Tastes nasty. Even omnivorous animals who gave been eating a lot of flesh are pretty unbearable. I dunno. I’d heard the same about horse meat, about how atrocious it tastes, until I actually tried it. Then I found out it tastes like a stronger version of beef and is actually pretty nice. It seems people just don’t like eating animals they keep as pets/are useful to humans. I’ve heard people turn their nose up at rabbit meat because they’re now being kept as pets, too. Note, “we” not eating them is pretty culturally specific. He’s a recipe for cat casserole from a [Tuscan chef](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muDGz851jd8). He praised the meat’s tenderness and said he’d eaten the succulent dish many times (the recipe got him fired after Italian animal rights activists went apeshit). People in the Veneto have also historically eaten cat (Vicenzans are still called _mangiagatto_) and it only recently died out (if it indeed has ;)) when the Italian government made it illegal to sell cat meat. Venetian butchers sell skinned rabbits with their heads still attached to assure people they are not buying a skinned cat. The meat’s also reputedly eaten in Switzerland, where it’s still legal to raise and kill them for private consumption. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/33 "2011-07-29T11:52:34Z")
A friend was in Vietnam doing research on monkeys. He was served dog by the family he lived with as a “treat”. He ate it to be polite. Immediately after dinner he went off and vomited. He gets nauseous today just telling the tale. My brother has had lion and snake. He liked both. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/34 "2011-07-29T14:21:46Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Shark and alligator. Never cat. Gator probably counts. Sharks are predatory _fish_. ---
**Author:** ![bufftabby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@bufftabby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bufftabby)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/35 "2011-07-29T14:31:26Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Gator probably counts. Sharks are predatory _fish_. Since alligators are reptiles and not mammals, I can’t imagine how they would count any more than a fish would. ---
**Author:** ![Jaledin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/36 "2011-07-29T15:42:15Z")
MFK Fisher might have. It’s been a while since I read her _How To Cook A Wolf_, but you’d think she might be good for expanding the bibliography of references. And here I was all set to say something about the Pope’s nose and my first girlfriend in high school. Nah, too easy. Go for the ex-wife-thing. Already been claimed, though. ---
**Author:** ![Homo\_litoralis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homo\_litoralis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homo_litoralis)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/37 "2011-07-29T16:49:32Z")
My gosh, I can’t think of a single predatory mammal that I’ve ever eaten, not even the neighbor’s cat, which comes as a shock to my carnivorous self. It’s time to expand my diet. I’m also surprised at how many people apparently don’t know what a mammal is nor what a predator is. Some sharks are predators, but none of them are mammals. They’re fish. All horses are mammals, but like pigs, cattle and deer, none of them are predators. They graze or forage or do whatever those non-predatory critters do. Alligators and some snakes, like rattlers, are predatory, but none of them are mammals. They’re reptiles. I watched Andrew Zimmern sit down for a sumptuous dinner of fried bat, definitely mammalian, but I don’t know if they were the predatory kind. They looked all crispy delicious though. Ex-wives can definitely be predatory too, though many of them are reptilian, and in any case I don’t think that I would want to eat one. Felines and canines certainly qualify, even the domestic kind. Wouldn’t it be something if the OP is serious about that cat? I don’t know any recipes for cat, but I do know that there’s more than one way to skin one. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/38 "2011-07-29T17:19:53Z")
Dog and cat. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/39 "2011-07-29T17:27:15Z")
No, cats are considered a taboo food among my people. ---
**Author:** ![limegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@limegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/limegreen)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574/40 "2011-07-29T21:24:30Z")
I’ve eaten raccoon, but it probably counts as more omnivorous than carnivorous. It was greasy, and definitely not something I’d want again. Possum is much the same. (American possum, that is.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-eaten-a-predatory-mammal/590574.md?page=3)