A SURE way to keep the New Year鈥檚 resolution you made to eat moderately would be to read Edible Plants and Animals: Unusual Foods from Aardvark to Zamia by A. D. Livingston and Helen Livingston (Facts on File, pp 292, 拢15.95). Some of the accounts of what may be eaten are enough to put tender eaters off the notion of food for hours. The rat, of course, has been eaten in times of famine everywhere but only a few cultures still serve it as a regular food item, often as a street food snack (the rats on the left have been flattened and quick fried). In the rich north, people are appalled by the idea of eating vermin or animals kept as pets, such as guinea pigs or dogs. Part of the rewards of relative riches is the distance between famine or poor people鈥檚 foods and a rich diet. This has dire consequences for agriculture worldwide as people raise beef on fragile tropical soils and despise the 鈥渂ush meat鈥� or cane rats that provided free protein in their diet.
The Livingstons鈥� collection of foods and anecdotes is a good browse. Apart from helpful hints on food for free, it will hearten gardeners to know that you can eat those persistent weeds such as kudzu and Japanese knotweeds 鈥� and appal you to know that those 鈥渓iving fossils鈥�, coelacanths, are on some menus.