Houston Hasher Becomes Cajun Delicacy
Swamp Rat goes into hiding
...fears being "On the Menu"!

Cajuns find something new to eat in nutria

Quiet table in the comer. Nice cabernet. Candles. And as a main course, monsieur, may I suggest ragondin au choux rouge. Sounds pretty good, but folks who read French probably are not racing to the bottom of the space to find out where to send the self-addressed envelope. Translation: Nutria with red cabbage. Merci, no.

Items such as the one I received recently from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries make me proud to be a Texan. Half Cajun by blood, I still wonder sometimes about our neighbors across the Sabine River and raised an eyebrow at the ,Louisiana Nutria Extravaganza" slated for Saturday in New Orleans. Nutria are herbivorous rodents common to coastal wetlands in Louisiana and Texas. They grow as big as footballs, plus or minus a bewhiskered nose and long, hairless tail, and they sport a bucked pair of orange teeth used to devour the roots and stems of succulent plants. Vile little beasts, they are, capable of creating a multitude of problems.

Apparently, Louisiana's nutria have multiplied so that they threaten 100,000 plus acres of Bayou State wetlands. We've got jillions of them, too. Probably used their unusual webbed feet to paddle across the Sabine. Something like the Southern version of what snow geese are doing to their nesting habitat. On a smaller scale, nutria are responsible. also for the regular and frustrating destruction of low levees created by farmers and waterfowl hunters. They also have the annoying habit of clamping onto the snouts of overly inquisitive for retrieving dogs that mistake the rodents for ducks or fuzzy playthings.

In the past more the distant than the recent, there was a significant market for nutria pelts which are a rich brown and sometimes are Dyed to look like beaver. Changed feelings about fur in general dried up much of, that demand, and only a handful of Louisiana trappers still run lines in season. Their efforts were no match for the nutria's exponential increase. State wildlife officials have a plan. Never to my knowledge has anyone whose house faces a paved road ever intentionally eaten a nutria. Anyone required first to look at the animal (and witness its striking resemblance to a steroid pumped New York City sewer rat) certainly would pass any invitation that involved knife and fork As part of a plan to curb the continuing devastation caused by these vermin, however, Louisiana wildlife officials hope to spark just such a fancy among diners. Saturday evening, for anyone who has the notion and resources to do something off the wall on a whim, New Orleans' Bizou Restaurant hosts a party at which contest winning chefs Philippe Parola (first place for the aforementioned recipe), Susan Spicer and Daniel Bonnot will serve up their nutria-based creations.

Parola, Spicer and Bonnot are culinary artists all of whom have been featured in national magazines and toured the world. Parola has traveled as far as Japan in his capacity as ambassador for the prolific and reportedly tasty ?nutria.

Nutria meat is actually quite low in fat. (lower than chicken or turkey and high in protein. Alligators eat lots of nutria, after all, and look how big and strong they are. Appear ance and texture, according to LDWF, are similar to that of dark turkey meat. Flavor is said to be mild and easily enhanced with seasonings; I'll take their word. The extravaganza dinner, for anyone interested in hopping a Southwest fligh afternoon, costs $50 per person for the benefit of the children of St. Vincent de Paul Society, who I am certain would rather have a share of the ticket revenue than the rat and cabbage platter. Anyone who wants badly enough to attend can look up the number for the Bizou Restaurant.

Nobody would challenge the ability of a Louisiana chef to make something of nothing in a kitchen. Not too long a ago after all, Paul Prudhomme turned national attention to redfish which, at the time, brought less than a buck a pound on the dock. Prudhomme dunked a fillet into a bucket of hot spices, cooked it quickly over a hot fire and created a demand that nearly collapsed the resource.

Louisiana also gets credit for some of the world's best crawfish recipes. You can bet the that it was a Cajun and not some city swamp from slicker from Dallas who first plucked a mud bug from a puddle, turned to a buddy and said, "This looks tasty." The first raw oyster? Undoubtedly a Cajun, and a brave one, to crack open that rough shell and slurp the contents. Centuries before cocktail sauce. Louisiana gave us a host of alligator recipes, too, and some pretty good directions for putting some kick into a pot of red beans and rice.

Having visited Louisiana rnany times and eaten at some of the state's finest private and public tables, I figured my Cajun friends had about run out of new stuff to eat and new just s to way eat it. How thrilled they must have been to discover an overpopulation of something big enough to eat.

I'm toying with my own recipe which has a working name of ragondin en brochette. In non?chef language, that, s big rat on a stick… Bon appetit.

by Doug Pike
Houston Chronicle