I will eat just about anything. There were the bunny hearts of last year, grilled and skewered on pine-y rosemary branches. They were chewy. I have loved sweetbreads from the time that I was young and traveling in France with my father. At the time, I thought they were artichoke hearts and ate them right up. Yes, give me your snails, slippery and drenched in garlicky butter! I don’t suppose I cover my carnivorous leanings on this site because offal usually doesn’t photograph too well. But roasted mustard rabbit, wrapped in salty prosciutto, adorned with pan juices deglazed with cream and lying on a bed of soft polenta, that looked, and tasted pretty darn fine.

When my sister (who still lives in California) called me this weekend, our conversation went something like this:

“So what are you doing?”
“Making dinner.”
“Oh, what are you having,” she asked, as she heard pans clattering in the background.
“Rabbit.”

Silence.

“That’s gross. I couldn’t.”

And I realize many people couldn’t. No amount of soothing my sister’s nerves by telling her how they were farm-raised, or that many people think that rabbit tastes just like chicken could alleviate her gag reflex. And I understand, I really do. But I thought that you, my faithful readers might like to see what I had for dinner this weekend.

I can see why parallels are so often created between rabbits and clucking barnyard fowl. The meat tends to exactly the same in color and texture. But with rabbit it is more subtle, more delicate. I tucked one fresh sage leaf under each slice of prosciutto, this perfumed the meat in a woodsy, herbaceous way. And the pan-juices, salty from the ham, and pale from the cream, were perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed my supper, but you should feel free to make the same recipe with chicken as well.

I would head out to the kitchen, teeth brushed, shoelaces tied, and shirt tucked in (because yes, I was one of those never-play-in-the-mud, proper children), to pour myself a bowl of cereal. Before I even arrived in the kitchen, the sulfuric smell of my mother mashing a half dozen eggs, mixed with coarsely chopped dill pickles for her egg salad, would hit me like a ton of bricks . A proper, though never meek child, I would fuss about the smell making me gag first thing in the morning. Pleasant.

Then there was school lunchtime. I would pull out my peanut butter and jelly sandwich sandwich; the only sandwich I would tolerate for some years. Friends would gather next to me, we would chitter-chat absentmindedly, and then the odor would come wafting through the cafeteria table. There my friend Jane would sit, gobbling up a tuna fish sandwich straight from a crinkly waxed paper wrapper. Sitting for hours, warming in her Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox, it smelled of the ocean after a storm, one that had riotously blown all of the fish out of the sea to bake in the sun. But Jane was a dear friend who did not deserve my complaints like my mother did. Instead I simply did not breathe through my nose for the duration of lunchtime in the cafeteria.

It’s funny how tastes (and smells) can change over the years, because fast-forward about twenty years, and I have been known to eat many a stinky thing: Cheese? Pass it over my way. Anchovies? But of course. Pate? Why not! I’ll even eat the dreaded egg salad and tuna fish sandwich, get this– together.

Ah yes, the good old stinky sandwich, all grown up, and made even stinkier, and brinier by the addition of fried capers. Made with olive oil packed tuna fish, drained (but not too well), a few perfectly cooked hard-boiled eggs (11 minutes in boiling water), and some chopped fried capers mixed into one wonderfully smelly mess. I add a few leaves of crisp, peppery arugula, and serve the whole jumble on a fresh baguette. De-licious!

Stinky Sandwich

2 hard-boiled eggs (11 minutes in boiling water)
2 tablespoons capers, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 can 5 1/2 ounce can tuna, packed in olive oil
1-2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Fry capers in olive oil until crisp, about 2-3 minutes. Set aside.

Peel eggs and coarsely chop in a mixing bowl. Drain tuna, leaving a bit of oil to coat the fish. Add tuna to the egg, and add the Dijon mustard, and the capers. Mix well. Taste, and season with salt and pepper, if desired.

Serve on a baguette, with arugula. Enjoy.