I’m just flabbergasted, honestly. I don’t get it. What the hell is wrong with eating rabbit? An animal always has to die for you to eat meat, what in the hell did they think? This is just unhinged, I’m leaning towards your solution to just ditch the weirdo. Why spend time tiptoeing around someone who suddenly goes into a rage frenzy over completely random, insane things? No thank you.

I would question their intelligence

Hey now. Vegetarian or not, if you told me you made pork pie and the main ingredient *wasn't* a buster keaton-esque, sugar water-stiffened chapeau, i'd eat my hat. And i guess i'd have to, wouldn't i? Seems so, since the esteemed host is a bona fide lunatic whose pork pie contains... pffft... _pork_ .

I just don't like the taste - I didn't know what it was when I ate it... but rabbit? One of the top three thing I ever ate was a properly prepared rabbit. People in different parts of the country eat different things: raccoons, opossum, squirrels, rattlesnakes... it's more of what your area finds "normal".

Americans eat rabbit. It’s not unusual. Just as venison isn’t uncommon. But in a nation so large, it IS somewhat regional. However, I agree that it’s silly people put happy, cartoon-like reverence for some animals, but completely ignore the same set of ideals for others. People chain themselves to roadways to protect one species while eating a gentler more intelligent other species. It’s a silly, hypocritical standard in many cases.

It's a suburbanite problem who have no clue how food gets to the table. Plenty of Americans eat rabbit, though they're usually wild. As an American, I always thought the horse meat taboo was because they were work animals and were more useful for labor (and glue). You're upper middle class if you can keep a horse maintained purely to ride it for leisure. That said if someone gave me a horse burger, I'd try it.

I would also find it strange as they're not classified as food animals in my head but if you said I'm serving horse stew, I would assume it had horse in it, because words mean things and unless you specifically said you were using the word in a non-standard way I would assume that you meant what you said. This woman's guests could have just not eaten the rabbit stew or at least asked if it was really rabbit *before* they ate it.

Right? I eat all kinds of meat, because if you don't like to eat Bambi or Thumper because they're cute then go vegetarian.

Horses have played a huge role in American history and have become entwined with the American cultural identity. It's a real shame that people feel so strongly about horsemeat because the United States has a huge problem with large feral horse populations and hunting would be a good method to manage the population while decreasing the consumption of unsustainable and inhuman farmed meats. It's ironic that we have so many surplus horses but don't eat them and in Europe where they have no surplus horses they want them. Currently US laws prevent the exportation of wild horse meat.

Where do they raise horses for food? I don't generally criticize others' food choices, but personally I find the slaughter of horses for food upsetting in that they were almost certainly a pet and/or was raised to do a job for and work with people. The thought of them trustingly being led into a slaughter house on their final day just seems like a massive betrayal to me. The unique relationship between people and horses and their willing service to and trust in us makes their slaughter all the worse for me. To me, that's a "culture food problem," but I would never have used that label to describe what you do in your country if you hadn't called the dislike of eating rabbit "another American food culture problem." I'm not saying the people in this story didn't behave badly - I'm just reacting to your comment.

I don't find that strange but i have to wonder how much good meat you could get off a horse. Aren't they like majority muscle?

People who live out in the country in the states arent like this. I'm deep in the south and we eat just about anything: gators, squirrels, warthog, rattlesnakes, rabbits, deer, quails. If it moves, they probably snatch it up and eat it. Big difference between country and city folk for that very reason.

No, I def don't approve of that, or cats and dogs. I'd rather starve.

But we sell rabbit in major grocery chains!

I've eaten a huge variety of meats, from the normal cows, chickens, and pigs, to mild exotic such as rabbits, snakes, crocodiles, all the way up to exotic/uncool, such as horse, dog, kangaroo, etc. Some I'd eat again and some I wouldn't touch again. I'm all for keeping animals as pets. I own a dog myself. But animals die. Its nature. If you don't make use of then somehow, then their death is meaningless.