Rat meat is the

meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

of various species of rat: medium-sized, long-tailed

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...

s. It is a

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is in ...

that, while

taboo A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

in some cultures, is a dietary staple in others. Taboos include fears of disease or religious prohibition, but in many places, the high number of rats has led to their incorporation into the local diets.

Regionally

Africa

In Malawi of East Africa, people there hunted field mice in corn fields for food: they strung the mice on sticks and cooked, salted or dried the mice as a popular delicacy in markets and roadside stalls. In

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

where cane rats distribute, people there have the habit of eating them as food.

Americas

Rat stew is a local specialty from

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

that originated from a collapse in the mining industry. The dish features as part of

roadkill cuisine Roadkill cuisine is preparing and eating roadkill, animals hit by vehicles and found along roads. It is a practice engaged in by a small subculture in the United States, southern Canada, the United Kingdom, and other Western countries as well ...

and has appeared in the Marlington Roadkill Cook-off.

Asia

In some cultures, rats are or have been limited as an acceptable form of food to a particular social or economic class. In the Mishmi culture of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

, rats are essential to the traditional diet, as Mishmi women may eat no meat except fish, pork, wild birds and rats. Conversely, the

Musahar Musahar or Mushahar are a Dalit community found in the eastern Gangetic plain and the Terai. They are also known as ''Banbasi''.The other names of the Musahar are Bhuiyan and Rajawar Their name literally means 'rat-eater' due to their main form ...

community in north India has commercialised rat farming as an exotic delicacy.

Ricefield rat The ricefield rat (''Rattus argentiventer'') is a species of rat found throughout Southeast Asia. Description The ricefield rat is a medium-sized rat with a grizzled yellow-brown and black pelage. Its belly is gray in the midline with whiter f ...

(''

Rattus argentiventer The ricefield rat (''Rattus argentiventer'') is a species of rat found throughout Southeast Asia. Description The ricefield rat is a medium-sized rat with a grizzled yellow-brown and black pelage. Its belly is gray in the midline with whiter ...

'') meat is eaten in Vietnamese,

Taiwanese Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan (Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese people, r ...

, Filipino, Cambodian, Chinese and

Spanish cuisine Spanish cuisine consists of the cooking traditions and practices from Spain. Olive oil (of which Spain is the world's largest producer) is heavily used in Spanish cuisine. It forms the base of many vegetable sauces (known in Spanish as ''sofrit ...

. Rat-on-a-stick is a roasted rat dish consumed in Vietnam and Cambodia. A 2020 study on wildlife trade in three southern Vietnamese provinces found that 55 percent of the field rats sold in tested restaurants were carrying a

coronavirus Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the co ...

Europe

In Victorian

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

rich and poor ate rat

pie A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts (pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), sweete ...

. During food rationing due to World War II, British biologists were known to eat

laboratory rat A laboratory rat or lab rat is a brown rat of the subspecies '' Rattus norvegicus domestica'' which is bred and kept for scientific research. While less commonly used for research than mice (see laboratory mouse), rats have served as an import ...

s, creamed. A recipe for grilled rats,

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectu ...

-style, calls for the use of alcoholic rats who live in wine cellars. These rats are skinned and eviscerated, brushed with a thick sauce of olive oil and crushed shallots, and grilled over a fire of broken wine barrels. In

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

, Ricefield rat (''Rattus argentiventer'') meat was immortalized by

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (, 29 January 1867 – 28 January 1928) was a journalist, politician and bestselling Spanish novelist in various genres whose most widespread and lasting fame in the English-speaking world is from Hollywood films that were ...

in his novel ''Cañas y barro''. Along with eel and local

bean A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...

s known as ''garrafons'', ''rata de marjal'' (marsh rat) is one of the main ingredients in traditional

paella Paella (, , , , , ) is a rice dish originally from Valencia. While non-Spaniards commonly view it as Spain's national dish, Spaniards almost unanimously consider it to be a dish from the Valencian region. Valencians, in turn, regard ''paella'' ...

(later replaced by rabbit, chicken and seafood).

South America

Elsewhere in the world, rat meat is considered diseased and unclean, socially unacceptable, or there are strong religious proscriptions against it.

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...

and

Kashrut (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fr ...

traditions prohibit it, while both the Shipibo people of Peru and

Sirionó people The Sirionó are an indigenous people of Bolivia. They primarily live in the forested northern and eastern parts of Beni and northwestern Santa Cruz departments of Bolivia.Hawaiians and the

Polynesians Polynesians form an ethnolinguistic group of closely related people who are native to Polynesia (islands in the Polynesian Triangle), an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Sou ...

, rat was an everyday food for commoners. When feasting, the Polynesian people of

Rapa Nui Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly ...

could eat rat meat, but the king was not allowed to, due to the islanders' belief in his "state of sacredness" called ''tapu''. In studying precontact archaeological sites in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, archaeologists have found the concentration of the remains of rats associated with commoner households accounted for three times the animal remains associated with elite households. The rat bones found in all sites are fragmented, burned and covered in carbonized material, indicating the rats were eaten as food. The greater occurrence of rat remains associated with commoner households may indicate the elites of precontact Hawaii did not consume them as a matter of status or taste.

As food for pets

Rats are a common food item for

snakes Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ...

, both in the wild, and as pets. Adult

rat snake Rat snakes are members – along with kingsnakes, milk snakes, vine snakes and indigo snakes – of the subfamily Colubrinae of the family Colubridae. They are medium to large constrictors and are found throughout much of the Northern Hemi ...

s and

ball python The ball python (''Python regius''), also called the royal python, is a python species native to West and Central Africa, where it lives in grasslands, shrublands and open forests. This nonvenomous constrictor is the smallest of the African p ...

s, for example, are fed a diet of mostly rats in captivity. Rats are readily available (live or frozen) to individual snake owners, as well as to pet shops and reptile zoos, from many suppliers. In Britain, the

Animal Welfare Act 2006 The Animal Welfare Act 2006 (c 45) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Overview It is the first signing of pet law since the Protection of Animals Act 1911, which it largely replaced. It also superseded and consolidated more tha ...

"legally required that prey be killed before feeding unless absolutely necessary for the health of the predator." The rule was put into place mainly because of the pressure of the

RSPCA The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a charity operating in England and Wales that promotes animal welfare. The RSPCA is funded primarily by voluntary donations. Founded in 1824, it is the oldest and largest a ...

and people who said the feeding of live animals was cruel.

References

{{Commons category Meat by animal Rats Meat dishes