Cat meat menu unleashes Italian outrage

An Italian television chef has caused outrage in Italy by suggesting that people should eat cats.

Beppe Bigazzi, a food expert on La Prova del Cuoco (The Cooks' Challenge), was suspended indefinitely after extolling the delights of "tender, white cat meat" on a national television channel.

Mr Bigazzi, 77, recommended that the best way to prepare a cat was to leave it under running water for three days in order to tenderise the meat and then cook it in a stew.

This video is in Italian, but I think you'll get the gist. Just watch the lady's face.


The suggestion enraged animal rights groups, with the Italian Animal Protection Agency calling for him to be sacked. "Anyone who goes on television to promote the taste of cat meat is guilty of instigating viewers to commit an act of cruelty to animals, a crime punishable by up to 18 months in prison." Mr Bigazzi claimed on the programme that eating cats was a long-held tradition in Valdarno, a town near Florence.

"Leave it for three days under a stream or running water and you end up with a delight, I've eaten its delicious white meat many times," he said.

Mr Bigazzi later claimed that he had seen people eat cats in Tuscany in the 1930s and 1940s, during wartime food shortages, but that he was not recommending that cat should still be eaten. "I was just talking about an old tradition," he said.