Lapin est très populaire en France.

De lapin en civet

I grew up eating all kinds of wild animal meat because we lived in the woods. My brother could hunt and trap and my father brought home many deer over the years hunting as well. It fed us well. It's a tradition. Fortunately, the Army Air Corps taught my dad to be an excellent marksman and I doubt the deer shot through the heart suffered much. I don't like trapping animals as it is far less humane... a trapper checks his "lines" several times a day so the animal can be dispatched quickly but I still don't like the method.

Sometimes Mom would prepare rabbit but she didn't really know how to cook it very well... it was always kind of bland and puny.

I found out in France that rabbit (le lapin) est very popular on menus. In fact, what we call rabbit is actually a hare that the Romans carried with them all over Europe to feed themselves. These rabbits burrow and are very prolific. I'm sure it made conquering and occupying territory easier than out chasing game to eat.

My roommate from my graduate school days showed me a recipe for rabbit: First cover the pieces in Dijon mustard, then dust it with flour, brown the pieces in a pan in which sour cream was added along with salt and pepper. Twas very nummy, especially if you adore good mustard as I do. Lapin tastes very much like chicken without breast meat. The white meat is really the hind quarters of the animal. Sometimes rabbit can be found here at regular grocery stores (usually grown in Minnesota at a farm) or it can be obtained frozen.

I worked on vocabulary today while reading Le Gloire de mon pére by Marcel Pagnol. This is the book my book club is reading. I have an English translation so when I am really stumped I use it to help me understand words in context. However, the more unique words present a different issue, so I enlisted the Internet today. I come from a hunting family so the stories today fit right in with memories of my childhood: listening to hunting stories, watching preparations, enjoying the meat.

Bottled Lapin stew seems to be popular.

en civet = a stew usually rabbit
le chamois = a goat-antelope species native to mountains in Europe
le bartavelle = a rock partridge
la harquebus (or arquebus, or harkbus or hackbut) = from Dutch haakbus which is a muzzle-loading firearm used in the 15th to 17th centuries.
When I have time to read French while researching new vocabulary I feel very rewarded.

We can blame the ancient Romans for intentionally introducing hares into the rest of Europe to feed their troops.