[Schaumburger]

Years ago I had rabbit a couple of times as a child. My parents told my sisters and I it was chicken. Fooled us. Didn't find out I had actually eaten rabbit until several years later.

When my two oldest nieces were in high school, they were very active in 4-H. Both girls raised Holland Lop rabbits for show. One of the rabbits lived until niece #2 got her bachelor's degree 2 years ago.

I don't know if I could knowingly eat rabbit now.

Not to hijack the thread, but I ate squirrel many times as a child as it is a favorite dish of my dad's. I haven't had squirrel for many years. Squirrel hunting season starts in Iowa (where my dad lives) on Sept. 2. A few days after that, my dad will have several squirrels in his freezer for eating during the fall and winter.

When I first moved to Chicago, people thought it was very strange when I told them I had eaten squirrel. But when you grew up on a farm in eastern Iowa during the Great Depression as my dad did, his family did not have had many material possessions, electricity or indoor plumbing, but at least they didn't go hungry.