Rats Have Begun to Whet the Appetite of Many

It has been quite a journey for the common pests, rats, as they now seem to appeal to people's palette.

In Mozambique, rat-based meals have turned into a cottage industry, sold as roadside fare skewered on a stick, six or seven rats for around 30 cents.

But the food trend isn't restricted to Mozambique.

Rats are popular in Thailand and France. But while some people end up eating rat out of necessity, others do it out of tradition. Some even like it.

"The eating of the field mice-Zimbabweans do that. It is a delicacy," AOL News quoted Machivenyika Mapuranga, Zimbabwe's ambassador to United States, as telling CNN.

"It is misleading to portray the eating of field mice as an act of desperation. It is not," he added.

Cambodians have been known to eat dried or roasted rat as a drinking snack. And in neighboring Vietnam, rat eating goes back generations and was practically a national craze in 2008.

In some places, rat dishes were selling for 4 dollars - quite steep for a country where many people make less than 50 dollars a month.

Source: ANI