| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 4/7 |
| 2003/5/23 [Recreation/Pets] UID:28536 Activity:moderate |
5/22 WANTD: Recipies for civet cats.
\_ http://www.ooze.com/ooze13/cats.html Civet shouldn't be
too much of a stretch. -John
\_ See also http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010525.html
\_ That is extremely funny. More so because I can just
imagine the type of people who pay that much for coffee.
\_ What's with the civets today? http://csua.org/u/30e |
| 4/7 |
|
| www.ooze.com/ooze13/cats.html One Way to Skin A Cat Gourmands like to skin their cats differently. They reccomend you grab the loose skin around the head stump, and using a pair of pliers, peel it back off the carcass like a banana, rolling it off the body. The final step before cooking is to wash the meat of stray gristle and hairs. One USENET account recommends placing a cat in a very high powered magnetron microwave. This device supposedly can cook a cat in approximately 10 minutes- the proteins are denatured (cooked), and sugars caramelized by microwave heating. That's exactly what we at PWEETA recommend- a slow cooked Beer Roasted Cat. Other cat recipes you may enjoy are classic Cat Tamales, Cat in Spicy Ginger Sauce, and Cat Au Gratin. Drain water and then cover and soak in beer for 6 hours. If you start to slow cook your cat in the morning with your George Foreman Cooker (or it's ilk), you'll have finely cooked feline in time for supper. If a slow cooker is not available, a cat can be baked at 350 degrees for 2-3 hours in a conventional oven and still come out pretty good. Beer Roasted Cat is fantastic served with mashed potatoes, collard greens, and fresh, homemade egg rolls. When planning a full meal just remember- cat is a course best served hot! Skinned Cat Cat may not be the most glamorous, or tastiest of game meats, but with a little thought and preparation, Baked Cat can make the belly of the persnicketiest diner glow with home baked goodness. CAT COOKIN' RESOURCES 8 LET'S COOK OUR CAT Remember the Twilight Zone episode where they translate the alien book, To Serve Man and find out it is a cookbook as the people of Earth take off in the Alien's spaceship? In a stunning reversal of metaphor, Let's Cook FOR Our Cat turned out not to be a simple way to prepare your feline for consumption, but a way to cook gourmet food FOR your cat. This is a silly and expensive way to fatten a cat - use cheap dried food like big meat packers do. |
| www.straightdope.com/columns/010525.html Previous Week | 10 Recent Columns Index Does civet come from tortured cats? I have even heard that they stretch these cats out on some type of medieval rack and whip them mercilessly to make them sweat more. I mean, coffee made from beans that have taken a ride down the alimentary canal of an animal? First of all, the civet isn't a cat, it just looks like one--actually it's related to the mongoose. And those sweaty excretions aren't sweat--they come from the perineal glands, next to the civet's anus. In ancient times some unknown perfume artisan came to an important realization: Olfactory protoscientist #1: Man, this civet smell is rank. Olfactory protoscientist #2: Yes, but it lasts a really long time! In fact, when used in minute quantities civet has a certain musky allure, and when mixed with more perishable fragrances it prolongs their scent. I don't find any evidence that you get civet out of civets by whipping them, but the process is none too pleasant. Every few days the keepers scrape the civet out of the anal sacs, a painful procedure (not to mention one of the world's worst jobs). The WSPA says that Chanel, Cartier, and Lancome have all admitted to using civet in their products and that laboratory tests detected the ingredient in Chanel No. Chanel says it substituted synthetic civet for the natural version starting in 1998, but come on--years of animal rights agitation and they're realizing only now that using this stuff promotes cruelty to animals? The beans have indeed gone in one end of an animal and come out the other, and guess which animal? None other than the civet, although in this case we're talking about the Indonesian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) rather than its perfume-ingredient-producing cousins (Viverra civetta and Viverra zibetha). The palm civet prowls about the coffee plantations of Indonesia, seeking out and eating only the ripest, most primo coffee "cherries" (the sweet pulpy fruit encasing the coffee beans). The indigestible bean passes through the animal's system and is excreted, passing within millimeters of our friends the perineal glands. In the old days it was then gathered by the poorest Indonesians and brewed into coffee. But then somebody had a brainstorm: You know, if we play our cards right, we can sell this to white people for $110 a pound! The coffee is said to have a rich, full-bodied, almost syrupy quality that supposedly results from fermentation in the digestive tract, blah blah blah. They say it's quite tasty if you can ignore the fact--no sense pussyfooting around here--that it's made from shit. Some people have expressed skepticism that kopi luwak consists entirely of pre-eaten beans, and from a quality-control standpoint it's hard to imagine what you would do to guarantee 100 percent authenticity. But I cherish the thought of some yuppie complaining that his coffee isn't pure shit. Meanwhile, somewhere a civet is rubbing its scraped perineal glands and thinking: Ah, sweet revenge. Cecil's latest gift to mankind, Triumph of the Straight Dope, is in the bookstores now and can also be ordered on-line at the 14 Straight Dope On-Line Store. No material contained in this site may be republished or reposted without express written permission. The Straight Dope is a registered trademark of 21 Chicago Reader, Inc. |
| csua.org/u/30e -> www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/05/23/international0908EDT0511.DTL Researchers from the University of Hong Kong examined 25 animals representing eight species in a live animal market in southern China and found the SARS virus in all six masked palm civets they sampled, as well as in a badger and a raccoon dog. Klaus Stohr, chief SARS virologist at the World Health Organization, said Friday it was impossible to tell from the study whether any of the animals spread the virus to humans or whether they caught the virus from people. The researchers said people could have been infected by the animals as they handled the animals while raising, slaughtering or cooking them. Eating fully cooked meat was probably safe, the researchers said. Civet cats are nocturnal animals related to the mongoose, with long tails and catlike bodies. The researchers said it was possible that animals got SARS from human feces used in fertilizer, and the illness did not originate with them. They recommended such game animals should be raised, slaughtered and sold under careful monitoring. Researchers have previously said SARS came from animals but not been sure what kind. Meanwhile, the WHO lifted its SARS-related travel advisories Friday against Hong Kong and the Chinese province of Guangdong, and scientists in Hong Kong have found the SARS virus in three species of small mammals traded at a food market. Also, an American physician with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was helping Taiwan battle SARS left the island Friday on a charter flight for Atlanta after developing a fever and other symptoms possibly caused by the virus. Though the WHO said the virus was under control in Hong Kong and China's southern Guangdong province, it continued to advise against nonessential travel to the Chinese capital, Beijing, and to the regions of Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Tianjin. It also continued to advise against travel to Taiwan, because of continuing new transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome. There also have been no recent reports of cases being exported to other countries from Hong Kong or Guangdong. All new cases in the past 20 days have occurred in people who were "already identified as contacts of a person with SARS and under active surveillance by the local health authorities," WHO added. SARS has infected more than 8,000 people worldwide and killed at least 689, the vast majority in China and Hong Kong. Also Friday, a private jet departed Taiwan for the United States carrying an American physician who came down with possible SARS symptoms. He had been sent to the island by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Taiwan's SARS Control Committee identified the doctor as Chesley L. Richards arrived in Taiwan on May 15 and had visited the emergency rooms and intensive-care units at two Taipei hospitals where SARS outbreaks were reported, Taiwanese officials said. This week, he developed a fever and a cough -- common SARS symptoms, CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding said Thursday at the centers' headquarters in Atlanta. WHO said the SARS virus has infected chains of up to 15 people and appears to be just as hardy in its last victim as in its first. Some other viruses mutate over time, and their ability to transmit weakens. WHO says it is seeking $200 million to launch a fund to help Asian nations combat SARS through medical surveillance and analysis. Taiwan reported 55 new SARS cases Friday but no new deaths. The island's total number of infections is 538 and the death toll is 60. That gives the island the third-highest toll after mainland China and Hong Kong. In Canada, health officials say they fear that four people in a Toronto hospital may be ill with SARS. All four are in a respiratory isolation ward, two in critical condition. Health officials, who learned of the cases late Thursday and do not yet know how the people may have been exposed to the disease, said they cannot say for certain if these are the city's first new SARS cases in over a month. In Singapore, a newspaper reported that some parents are keeping their children chilled with ice water and air conditioning before classes so they won't be sent home with suspected fevers as part of anti-SARS measures. |