Bizarrely, there is a generation over here who still hasn’t forgiven Maggie Thatcher for her ending our version of that programme!
I don’t know if the U.S. was the first to institute a nutrition program for schools, the first National program came along in 1946 if I read correctly, but feel free to blame us though, I never cared for the stuff very much. The flavor straws were also a disappointment, never seemed to get the job done very well. I was however quite an Ovaltine fan. In the recent past it has been reported that the staple kid’s food Corn Flakes was a trick to keep young male children’s “urges” under control, if this is true, what heinous machinations were concealed within flavor straws, and milk ?
Being originally from Wisconsin, I do like some cheeses, and little is better than Butter.
Farm folks I knew that had cows, liked warm raw milk, (which smells like the cow it came from) so I guess it must be what one is used to ,though I believe that even cows would prefer a good Ale if they were ever given the choice.
One of the things I’ve read that it seems has been missed by the older gents here like RS* 
is that cod liver oil was regularly given to some U.S. school children and to children in orphanages. The reason was its high density of vitamins D and A, the former helps the body absorb calcium and all the milk in the world is useless for bone development without it. My father and uncles in fact had to endure teaspoons of it before school --which still makes him wince to this day. I myself take cod liver oil after being told I have a borderline D deficiency. The omega 3 fatty acids don’t hurt either. I don’t take it with teaspoons however with the genius invention of gel-tabs…
When I was a kid, when dinosaurs roamed the earth long before young Nick was born, it was common here for kids to be given cod liver oil by their parents.
It was also common for kids to be given castor oil mixed with orange juice to encourage bowel action, and by all accounts it was explosively successful in that endeavour. I never had it but, from kids I knew who did, it tasted significantly worse than the product it produced. Not having tasted the product to this day, I relied upon their knowledge and evidence in that respect.
There was an obsession with regular bowel function for health in that era (nowadays replaced by an obsession with germicidal bench wipes etc), which was encouraged by Laxettes in those who weren’t sufficiently regular. Apparently the jingle, which we all knew well, was still being used in ads as recently as 1985 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN63RzbuVb0
And for you military history buffs (as distinct from those of us living in a past of free school milk), here’s an ad for Laxettes on the bottom right of the front page of a 1942 Australian newspaper covering the battle of the Coral Sea and various other wartime news, which gives a good indication of where the nation’s news focus was at the time http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/1860844 . In the middle of the page you’ll see a short item headed ‘Strangled to Death’ relating to the murder of Pauline Thompson, who it was later discovered was killed by a US soldier called Eddie Leonski who, I think, was the only American serviceman executed in Australia during WWII. http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/eddieleonski.htm
Can I submit this thread so far for a prize for going so far off topic and meandering around that it is beyond belief?
Mate, the borderline deficiency you have goes way beyond Vitamin D. 
:mrgreen:
Now, back to Andersonville, scurvy, and the Civil War, I’m wondering whether the prisoners who died of scurvy at Andersonville suffered it entirely at Andersonville or whether poor rations before their capture might have had them on the way already and the worse conditions at Andersonville accelerated the disease?
Thats an interesting question, and I would say that in some cases the deaths by Scurvy were due entirely to conditions at Andersonville. But, Andersonville was built to take the load off of several other Prisons, so the majority of transplanted prisoners would doubtless have already been showing symptoms upon arrival in Georgia. There were some prisoners who came from the field, and some of them had food with them which the guards allowed them to keep (or they were well hidden) The Raiders mentioned in previous posts would on occasion rampage through the yard ,and take what they wanted by force.
The Union Army was generally provisioned to a reasonable degree with the basics as much as possible, some meat, potatoes, and bread. I’m guessing that any fruits, or vegetables, were probably foraged. Poke Salad was a common if tricky to use edible (sort of ) plant that grew about everywhere, and was toxic if not prepared properly. But its cheap eatin’, and consumed much like any other Green.
One interesting note is that in the 1860’s milk was considered to be fresh even if 3 days old. I guess fresh meant that it hadn’t grown legs, and began walking on its own. :mrgreen:
It hadn’t changed here by the 1960s, if the clag ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clag_(glue) ) we were given under the school milk program is any guide.
We used the very same sort of stuff in our Schools,probably made by the same company. (possibly from rejected wall paper paste that didn’t meet industry standards.) The weird kids in class were known as “paste eaters” .
The comedian Bill Cosby spoke of his time in Kindergarten, : “Like “Kindergarten” and how they never learn anything exept how to say goodbye to your parents without crying, And of course there’s nothing better for a bunch of five year old children, than a glass of…Luke-warm, Curdly Milk” .
I think that if one was a horse soldier, and had some 3 day old milk, it might by dint of agitation turn into something more useful like butter, or cheese curds.
Or botulism.
Which leads into something also related to Andersonville and times past more recent of a war nature, which is the diet of the common soldier and the common person in each era.
When I was a kid (apparently some decades before young Nick was thrust into this world :D) lamb was a delicacy but mutton was the common meat. I reckon I’d go close to vomiting if I smelt mutton being cooked now, let alone having to try to eat it. Yet I ate a fair bit of it in the shearing sheds in the second half of the 1960s when the charitable cockies (farmers) took the opportunity to cull their aged sheep (i.e. sheep too old and infirm to be able run up the ramp onto the slaughterhouse truck) and feed it to shearing teams, and charge us for the privilege of supplying us with these rancid corpses.
I see in some of the gourmet pages in the press that mutton is making a bit of a comeback lately, which demonstrates that it doesn’t taste like real mutton, because the latte sipping (or sipping the really good coffee made from beans shitted out by a monkey, FFS!), chardonnay sucking, al dente pasta gourmands wouldn’t be able to handle such strong, fatty flavours.
But if we go back even to the immediate post-WWII years people were used to very much stronger flavours than they are now. And very different textures and proportions of fat, as exemplified by a version of Spam we had here called Camp Pie, which was essentially cereals trapped in sweating, somewhat jelly like fat once it got onto your plate in summer. It was solid in winter, but still tasted like shit. But it was pretty much the bully beef which powered the British Commonwealth forces in WWI and WWII, along with biscuits which owed more to the brick maker’s art than anything to do with cooking.
Even as late as the period between the world wars, and probably for some years after WWII, I think it was common in some circles in England to hang game (hares, partridges, etc) until they were green and the flesh beginning almost to rot, before cooking them.
Take all this back to the 1860s in an age before refrigeration was generally available and I expect that if the prisoners at Andersonville were fed any fresh meat it was far worse than the fresh meat I got in the shearing sheds in the 1960s, albeit as a result of the same desire by the suppliers to get top dollar for unsellable stock, and that much of what they got that was supposedly fresh whether meat or vegetable was probably already well on its way out.
Combine that with what I suspect was a contemporary willingness to consume meat and other things which were a long way past their use by date and I suspect that there was a greater risk of disease from bad foods and perhaps less ability to get from spoiled foods the vitamins necessary to keep scurvy at bay.
Probably ably aided by people along the supply chain stealing the better bits.
We heard of that a long time ago, courtesy of one of your singers. (I like only two types of music. Country. And Western. :D)
I always enjoyed that song too. Some folks spell it Polk, and others use Poke, from my understanding that it was gathered into a sack (poke) and carried that way, so “poke” salad. To the dirt poor folks if they had nothing else to eat, there was always a pot of poke salad to be had. Other staples in the south were Grits, a corn porridge, which could be embellished with anything one may have to hand be it berries if in season, or pine nuts, seeds, Cracklins were also a popular additive, they were the very crispy bits of meat left over from rendering fat, or roasting whatever had been the most recent hunting prize. Fat was used for candles,soap, skin, and leather treatments, and even consumed straight up in liquid form. For grinding physical labor, it made an excellent fuel. (can’t imagine being hungry enough to gag it down though… )
This is a cut N’ paste from Civil War Academy .com from an article about military nutrition in the 1860’s.
"That’s probably the most well known Civil War food. Anybody who knows even a little about the war has most likely heard of hardtack.
There were plenty of other Civil War food options on a soldiers menu.
For example, one option was salt pork. This wasn’t exactly a BLT but it was still meat…sorta.
The salt pork that was given to the soldiers during the war was a stinky kind of blue extra salty meat, with hair, skin, dirt, and other junk left on it. It was however, their main supply of protein. That counts for something right?
Letters from Civil War soldiers contain numerous references to bacon, but historians believe that the term bacon was used for all salt and smoked pork, not just the strips of meat that we now call “bacon”. Salted beef and jerky were also given to the soldiers. Many ate salt beef only out of necessity. This was especially true for the confederates.
Salt beef was basically all of the very worst parts of a cow that you could think of. These lovely parts included organs, neck and shanks. but the basic meat was pork. Naturally, soldiers grew tired of this monotony.
In Union camps, sutlers (civilian merchants) sold items like canned fruit, sugar, tobacco, and coffee, but Confederate soldiers did not have sutlers stores, and relied on the generosity of local farmers for occasional treats such as fruit.
Civil War soldiers did occasionally have fresh meat to eat. This included cattle, pigs, and sheep. Armies would have entire herds following them while they were on campaign.
When in enemy territory, soldiers frequently helped themselves to chickens, fruit, vegetables, and other items from local farms and households, considering these the spoils of war. Commanders might reprimand soldiers for such acts, but this seldom stopped a hungry man from seeking extra food. During Sherman?s march from Atlanta to the sea, Union soldiers feasted on cattle, hogs, vegetables and fruit and destroyed what they could not carry.
When times were thin soldiers sometimes resorted to eating their horses and mules.
In extreme desperation, rats were consumed.
In the Confederacy things became so bad for civilians that it led to food riots throughout many southern cities.
Civil War soldiers were also given rice, potatoes, onions, molasses, and other non-perishable or slow to perish items, but hardtack (or cornmeal) and salt meat were favored because they were both easy to ship and easy to carry on a march or into battle.
Soldiers were given rations in three-day allotments; before a march or battle, they cooked their raw food so that they could carry it with them. A canvas haversack with a removal lining was used to carry Civil War food on the move. Although soldiers removed the lining and washed it when they had a chance, the haversacks soon smelled of old meat. Sometimes the salted meat given to the soldiers was past its prime, so they nicknamed it “salt horse”.
Corn was really only available when things were going well for your side. Meaning not in the middle of a battle.
The same goes for beans, as they could not be consumed uncooked or improperly cooked. This would result in very bad stomach situations.
Peas were plentiful in supply and could be eaten as a meal in times of desperation. When there were no peas around, potatoes and rice would suffice.
Fresh fruits were really important to have in good supply.
Lack of fresh fruits could turn into Scurvy: a horrible disease that resulted in tooth loss, receding gums, night blindness, rotting lips, jaws, and cheeks, and even internal hemorrhaging.
All that was prevented just by eating an orange.
The men in the war also loved their coffee, and drank it whenever possible. Coffee was a treasured beverage during the war, for soldiers soon recognized its properties to keep them awake after many hours of weary duty. Raw, green coffee beans were given to Union soldiers, who roasted them in a pan over the open fire and then crushed them, often with the butts of their rifles. Confederates frequently had to use coffee substitutes, such as chicory or roasted acorns.
Civil war food was far from a balanced diet. Not surprisingly, a poor diet along with unsanitary conditions contributed to a high disease rate among soldiers on both sides.
Volunteer nurses and the volunteers who collected supplies back home for the soldiers tried to alleviate their monotonous diet by collecting fresh fruits and vegetables for them; although these items were not easy to send into the field, they were supplied in abundance to sick and wounded soldiers in northern hospitals and southern hospital workers also did there best to get fresh food for their patients, despite wartime food shortages.
Fruit was a favorite treat for ill soldiers; Abraham Lincoln often brought gifts of fresh fruit to the soldiers at the Washington army hospital, as did poet Walt Whitman who volunteered at the hospital.
Baked goods were another treat for sick soldiers. It was not uncommon for volunteer nurses to stay up late at night baking for their charges. Gingerbread was considered nourishing and easy to digest; it was often given as a comfort Civil War food to hospital patients. If we went back in time to the Civil War, we would enjoy some of the still familiar foods, like gingerbread, that the soldiers enjoyed, but we would also find some of the food, like hardtack, rather strange."
The obsession is still with regular bowel function, only castor oil and other vile child abuse have been replaced by “probiotics” in the form of supplements and yogurt with “strains of good bacteria”…
And for you military history buffs (as distinct from those of us living in a past of free school milk), here’s an ad for Laxettes on the bottom right of the front page of a 1942 Australian newspaper covering the battle of the Coral Sea and various other wartime news, which gives a good indication of where the nation’s news focus was at the time http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/1860844 . In the middle of the page you’ll see a short item headed ‘Strangled to Death’ relating to the murder of Pauline Thompson, who it was later discovered was killed by a US soldier called Eddie Leonski who, I think, was the only American serviceman executed in Australia during WWII. http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/eddieleonski.htm
Can I submit this thread so far for a prize for going so far off topic and meandering around that it is beyond belief?
Mate, the borderline deficiency you have goes way beyond Vitamin D.
Don’t tell the Sheilas about my borderline deficiency!
Now, back to Andersonville, scurvy, and the Civil War, I’m wondering whether the prisoners who died of scurvy at Andersonville suffered it entirely at Andersonville or whether poor rations before their capture might have had them on the way already and the worse conditions at Andersonville accelerated the disease?
I think TG summed it up best as foraging of crops and livestock probably alleviated the shortcomings of the wonderful staples such as Hardtack, bacon, and other heavily salted or dried foodstuffs and supplemented what constituted as standard Army rations. There’s no question that the stresses such as sleep deprivation, forced marches, physical and mental abuse, exposure to the elements, and bare-minimum subsistence rations they were likely fed en route probably wore down the immune systems and reserves of body fat many of these men had even before they arrived at Andersonville (death camp)…
Excellent article, TG. I recall seeing one “Civil War recipe” as being a piece of hardtack soaked in boiling water until it became mushy or pasty (like a batter). It was then moulded into a friable piece of dough and fried in “bacon” grease to make a sort of pancake, dumpling or fritter…
Thanks Nick,what you described sounds like Corn Pone, or Johnny cakes which were made by pan frying dough in fat . At first I had though this to be a Corn Dodger (assuming they were made with Corn) but those are baked, not fried. The American Indians made something called Fry bread which is a different thing, being deep fried in lard, and is much like a sticky bun. It is quite good, I’ve had it on several occasions. Mmmm, makes me want to have some cat head biscuits and gravy.
Hard Tac was made IIRC as disagreeable as it was in order to allow it to survive time, and handling as were the salt meats, and other canned goods they had available assuming not too much was siphoned off by rear echelon Q-masters.
I have some doubts as to the safety of cans in those days as to how they were sealed, I recall a maritime expedition up in the far north waters West of Baffin Bay in the area of Melville Island, an expedition from England I think. The cans in which their provisions were preserved were hand soldered with lead solder, and this having been poorly done, serious amounts of lead were exposed to the cans contents. From what I remember, most, or all of them eventually succumbed to lead poisoning and being driven mad by it.
I wonder if the Union had in their troops the same amount of “tribal knowledge” concerning identifying, finding, and safely using edible/medicinal wild vegetation as their Confederate counterparts. (or who has the larger set when they come across a honey Bee nest up in a tree…)
I found this bit from a paper written about Scurvy, sorry for another Cut N’ paste, but I don’t want to wear out my Rickety knuckles…
"The American Civil War illustrated, in yet another example, that scurvy was land as well as a sea problem. Prior to the Civil War, scurvy was the most common disease in the U.S. Army.[231] For a country whose borders and army were ever increasing, cost, perishability, and logistics of supplying a proper diet to troops in the wilderness proved almost impossible.[232] The U.S. Army began distributing a foodstuff known as “desiccated compressed mixed vegetables” as an antidote for scurvy.[233] The food, however, proved impractical for troops involved in combat or rigorous training or in small groups because it needed to be boiled for five hours before it could be eaten.[234] Even when available, troops would often refuse to eat the mixture, calling it “desecrated vegetables” because the composite was mainly roots, stalks, and leaves.[235] Even when eaten, the mixture supplied almost no vitamin C because the boiling process destroyed almost the entire nutrient contained in the raw composite.[236]
During the Civil War, scurvy rates continually increased, from less than .5% prior to the war to nearly 3% just after the end of combat.[237] However, these figures show a vast amount of underreporting because only soldiers who died from scurvy or were sent to hospitals would have been counted in the total.[238] For example, if one soldier in a group was sent to an army hospital for scurvy, only he would count towards the scurvy total.[239] However, it would be likely that the entire group was suffering from malnutrition and likely was suffering from at least a milder case of scurvy.[240]
Scurvy also had secondary health effects during the Civil War. Since scurvy effects the healing of wounds, the disease led to increased mortality rates for those wounded in combat.[241] In spite of bettering medical techniques and medical supplies, the portion of battlefield wounded who died continually increased throughout the war.[242] This increase in death rates for the wounded almost exactly mirrored the increases in scurvy rates recorded.[243] For example, in William T. Sherman’s Southern campaign, scurvy and percent of wounded who died show similar trends.[244] As the army pressed on to Atlanta and vegetables became scarce, scurvy rates rose from .1% to .5% while the death rate of wounded rose from 10% to nearly 25%.[245] Once Atlanta fell and the rail lines were opened to deliver fresh produce, scurvy rates quickly dropped to between .2 and .3% and death rates for the wounded fell to less than 5%.[246]
One surgeon, when considering the increased death rates of wounded, later remarked that
[t]he great increase in secondary hemorrhage appeared to be referable to the prolonged use of salt meat, and to the consequent scorbutic condition of the blood,…the increase in pyaemia and hospital gangrene, may in like manner, have been connected in a measure at least, with the physical and chemical changes of the blood and organs, dependant upon imperfect nutrition and sameness of diet.[247]
Famous Confederate nurse Phoebe Pember, matron at Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, noted that “Poor food and great exposure had thinned the blood and broken down the system so entirely that secondary amputations performed in the hospital almost invariably resulted in death, after the second year of the war.”[248] In fact, she noted that after that time, only two cases under her watch did not result in death—two Irishmen, but she noted “it was really so difficult to kill an Irishmen that there was little cause for boasting on the part of the officiating surgeon.”[249]
Prisons for captured soldiers were extremely prone to scurvy deaths due to the lack of proper nutrition and harsh conditions.[250] For example, the Confederate prison of Andersonville had scurvy death rates as high as 25%.[251] It can be reasonably assumed that given the difficulty in supplying proper nutrition to an army’s own men, spending resources to feed prisoners of war was not a top priority.
After a scurvy outbreak among Union troops during the Peninsula campaign of 1862, the public became aware of the disease and the general problem of proper nutrition in the armies.[252] Civilian groups began organizing event and food drives to support troops at the front.[253] The primary focus of these efforts was to collect potatoes and onions, both moderate suppliers of vitamin C.[254] At this point, citrus was known to be the best source of vitamin C, but oranges, lemons, and limes spoiled to quickly to be of much use if sent to distant troops.[255] These civilian groups would ride about their towns collecting potatoes and onions door to door, or would hold special benefit event in which a potato or onion was the fee for entry.[256] The groups would conduct informational campaigns by placing signs encouraging loved ones to send additional food to the troops.[257] For example, one sign posted in Chicago read “Don’t send your sweetheart a love-letter. Send him an onion.”[258]
Chronic diarrhea and dysentery were also blamed on scurvy.[259] These diseases were among the biggest killers of troops throughout the war.[260] In hindsight, however, it is known that vitamin C deficiency was not the cause of these diseases.[261] Vitamin B and folic acid deficiencies were more likely causes of diarrhea and dysentery.[262] However, the timing of the onset of these vitamin deficiencies and scurvy was likely similar due to the poor nutritional quality of the food supplied to soldiers, so it is understandable that the known disease of scurvy would be tied to the onset of diarrhea and dysentery.[263]
Overall, it is apparent that the government and common citizens were aware of both scurvy and foods that could prevent it. However, logistical problems, conditions during warfare, and cost made scurvy an enormous problem for both the Union and Confederacy during the American Civil War. The war, however, seems to be the last conflict greatly effected by scurvy as food preservation and logistics improved greatly in the coming decades."
Should anyone wish to read the entire paper, it is available here. leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/658/Mayberry.html
Mmmmm, Botulism… People of the 1860’s probably had the intestinal fortitude to deal with the greater density of bacteria in their food supply, as well as difficult to manage foods like Mutton. (I tried it once, and paid the price for being so adventurous ) Geriatric meat animals are good only for long roasting, or making sausage as they are so tough, and stringy. (or as bait for catching larger animals that taste better.)
It was not uncommon for the unscrupulous food mongers to foist marginal, and even bad food on the Gov’t for use by the troops, just as they did in supplying the Bureau of Indian affairs with food for the tribal people who ended up in the reservations. Graft, and corruption seem to be a constant in every era of mankind.
Very interesting information of Civil War military diet. Regarding mutton - this is pretty well unobtainable (except in the form of mutton dressed as lamb) where I am. I am assured that it can be delicious, with a better flavour than lamb. The trick is that it needs slow cooking - either very slow roasting or poaching, carefully controlled. Experiments done on medieval cookery suggest that this was a skill probably achieved by few, so that the result was more than likely to be either burnt black (and possibly raw inside), or undercooked like an Inns of Court dinner and tough, or overcooked (by poaching/boiling) and tasteless. I doubt if Civil War soldiers had any better luck cooking unfamiliar “lesser cuts” than most of us would now.
Seriously, preservation must have been a very serious problem. In the absence of modern refrigeration, freezing would seldom have been an option (unless there was an ice house in the vicinity). The solution was salting and drying - much better option than making sausages - and making the maximum possible use of dried goods such as rice, beans, lentils and hard tack. Roman soldiers of long ago seem to have considered a diet largely consisting of rehydrated salt pork and beef and lentils (boiled pig stew, basically) as a pretty good military diet on the march. In permanent camp, there would have been more variety.Perhaps it was not so very different for the soldiers of the Civil War. Best regards, JR.
It has been said that the greatest feat of the Roman Empire was not in engineering, or military prowess, or even civil organization, but domestication of the Rabbit. I read this is a book about Rabbits, so I will concede that the accuracy of the information may be suspect. It was stated that the Romans having discovered Rabbit to be a very good food stuff, quick to replenish, and relatively easy to transport, had taken great numbers of them along on military expeditions, and kept them in stone pens. This was not the best way to keep Rabbits as they burrowed under the walls escaping in number all along the route. It was inferred by this that the Romans not only domesticated the Rabbit, but by this “leakage” brought about the presence of Rabbits to most of the known world. (Except Australia RS*, it didnt say who was responsible for that… ) As a food, Rabbit is a very good source of nutrients, having in 5 ounces as much nutritional value as 8 ounces of beef, (and perhaps Goat, and Mutton)
In the American South, wild game would have been Deer, Bear, Panther, mountain Lion, Bob Cats, fox, Possum, weasel,squirrel and snake. Birds available were Turkey,Pheasant, probably Grouse of some type, Vultures, and someone’s Chickens. The problem with wild game animals is that they tend to migrate when the war would get too close.
Yes, the Romans bear a heavy responsibility for the spread of Bugs and his family, directly or indirectly. And yes, the problem is that the little buggers dig, and stow away on boats, irrespective of any concept of their domestication. A solution long attempted, but with limited success, was to confine the rabbits on suitably grassy knolls or “land islands” surrounded by deep-embedded posts, or on actual islands - hence the number of variations on placenames including “Warren”, “Coney”, or “Coney Island” still common in parts of Europe and not unknown, I think, on the east coast of the USA. Why bother to confine them ? Well, they could easily become a pest in the absence of adequate predation. Or, to put it another way, the ate the grass from under the cattle and sheep. The rabbit was brought to Ireland, apparently, by the Normans, who appreciated the delicate meat of the animal as much as did the Romans. However, they little … rodents could no more be confined here that anywhere else, and escaped from their “warren-mounts” and “coney islands” (they are, after all, rodents, and natural stowaways as well as diggers) to breed like … rabbits and populate the country. In recent times - here at least - an effort was made to control wild rabbits by means of biological warfare. A disease called myxamatosis was introduced to the wild rabbit population, with results so disgusting and horriffic that the process was discontinued, but only after it had almost wiped out the wild rabbit here. The species has made something of a recovery but, for years, it was difficult to obtain rabbit here, and most of the shop-bought rabbit, even now, is likely to be farmed. Presumably, the modern rabbit farmer has better means of containment than Roman and Norman predecessors … Best regards, JR.
Thomas Austin, the dumb *****. http://www.heritageaustralia.com.au/pdfs/Heritage%200306_Rabbits.pdf
http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/173740/Rtn01a.pdf
Apparently you can’t live on rabbit alone, based purely on me watching this on TV recently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC2RYiaM6WU
Having seen plenty of them, and nothwithstanding the assurances on QI in the link, I can assure you that nobody except the blind would eat a myxo rabbit.
Rabbit became a very popular food here during the 1930s Depression as it was cheap, but also something the suitably skilled unemployed could catch and convert into quick money.
By the 1950s / 1960s when I was a kid, rabbits were rarely seen in butcher shops because they were regarded as Depression food and nobody wanted to be reminded of that.
Rabbits were always sold in pairs here. Don’t know why, but probably because there is very little meat on them and you’d need a pair for a decent meal.
RS - did you Aussies not build a “rabbit-proof fence” right across the country ? Did it do anything to control their spread ? Not a subject I am very familiar with. Best regards, JR.