If you hit New York City during the traditional Easter Parade, whether you're Alice or not, chances are you'll feel like you tumbled down the rabbit hole into a surreal wonderland.
These days the spectacle along Fifth Avenue is more of an amble than a parade. When Easter bonnets do show up - and I use the term "bonnet" loosely - they're bigger and more colourful than the stained glass windows in Saint Patrick's cathedral as participants vie for attention.
More likely you'll see mad hatters with giant green or purple fuzzy bunny ears the size of the Empire State Building and sexy Jessica Rabbit knock-offs rather than the frilly bonnets immortalized in Irving Berlin's classic song.
Rabbits, with their inherent symbolism of fertility and sexual potency, have long been associated with Easter and all rites of spring. We've just not seen them on the dinner table lately.
But why can't we fix that, given rabbit can be one of the most exquisite tasting and healthiest meats you'd ever want to cross utensils over. And what better way to celebrate it than making it the centrepiece for a striking Easter dinner. Just tell the kids it's chicken if you think it might upset them.
Then again, little chicks are featured on Easter egg wrappers and cards. So tell them it's special tofu only made at Easter.
I have a theory based on politics regarding the domination of Easter dinner by, A., the misused turkey, which gets star billing at most holiday dinners but should really be served more often year-round given it's easy preparation and excellent nutritional qualities, and, B., by the tubby little ham, which can be delicious if you source it right but usually is loaded with questionable additives such as phosphates and nitrites and half the salt from the Dead Sea on top of presenting a horrid jelly-like texture like Porky Pig's belly. (One Australian study found that some hams, imported from North America, contained up to 38 per cent water and as little as 53 per cent pork.)
There are the politics of lobbying by pork interests and otherwise. And then we have class politics left from medieval times when increased settlement and the control of lands by noblemen meant that hunting, for rabbits and otherwise, became greatly restricted - the domain of one smaller, richer class over another.
Another part of my theory is that the turning of our backs and the clamping down of our pot lids against the misunderstood rabbit can be traced back to the cultural fabric of roughly the same period.
For it was the mighty Moors as they occupied Andalusian Spain who savoured many a rabbit, connoisseurs of quality meats that they were. No doubt that's at least one reason why rabbit lingered in popularity in that part of the world, at least more so than it does in the New World.
Here's a very simple and delicious way to cook rabbit, thanks to a Basque cookbook we carted back from northern Spain.
Find a "beau" rabbit. Wash it and oil it well (a good olive oil is perfect). Place it in a big, preferably earthenware casserole dish with a cover. Add five seeded red peppers; a kilo of onions; as much garlic as you like; a hot dried pepper or three; salt and pepper. Bake it all at 350 degrees for about 2 hours, popping the cover on and off to get the desired level of moisture.
When it's done, the rabbit falls from the bone and the peppers and onions caramelize to a delicious sweetness.
Other than the occasional novelty "pioneer" or "living off the land" cookbook here in Canada, recipes for cooking rabbit are pretty non-existent outside of Quebec.
When you do find rabbit recipes in "pioneer" cookbooks, they rightfully distinguish cooking instructions for wild or bush rabbits, also called jackrabbits for their very long ears that make them look like jackasses. These wascally wabbits also have leaner, tougher and sometimes stronger tasting meat than plump domesticated breeds.
In fact, jugged hare - or jugging meat of any kind - is a technique specifically for cooking wild meat to render it tender. Traditionally, the rabbit or other game is cut up, and marinated and/or cooked in pieces before being placed along with liquid and seasonings in an earthenware jug. The jug is sealed with a tight-fitting lid and set into a pan of boiling water on a stovetop, where it simmers for hours.
In France, lots of wine and sometimes the animal's blood is used. But true to our practical Canadian roots, the recipe below for jugged jackrabbit uses water, stock and tomato juice. However, I'm sure for a special occasion such as Easter you can substitute as much wine as you like. Or, if you've torn this page out of the Pique and brought it along on your backwoods tour, go continental and add some of your jackrabbit's blood.
One final note: as cute - and delicious - as rabbits can be, in Australia they're an environmental nightmare depleting the countryside of native vegetation, which causes huge erosion problems.
Introduced by European settlers in the late 1700s, the rabbits literally went wild after a keen hunter later introduced a dozen for fun. Easy to shoot, yes, but unfortunately people gave up eating them when "bio" controls - read "viruses" - were introduced to help control wild rabbit populations.
Not such happy Easter bunnies there, so have a Canadian one instead.
Jugged hare (jackrabbit)
From the Wilderness Kingdom New Cookbook, published in Saskatoon
Skin and clean hare. Cut into pieces, salt well and leave overnight. Wash the pieces off before browning them in fat in a frying pan. Place the pieces in a baking dish with salt and peppercorns to taste; 1 litre of stock or hot water; 1 cup tomato juice; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; cloves stuck in a medium-sized onion; bouquet garni (fresh or dried parsley, thyme and bay leaf). Cover the dish tightly and cook in a moderate oven for about 2 hours. Or, to do real jugging, place everything in an earthenware jug in a pan of boiling water on the stovetop. About half an hour before serving time, thicken the gravy with flour to taste and add more tomato juice or liquid and seasoning as you like.
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who favours choice over custom.
