"Lobscouse and Spotted Dog" offers reciped from Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey Maturin novels, including rats in onion sauce. They suggest subsituting rabbit, if rat is not available. Apparently they taste the same.

My mother made the best beef stew I have ever eaten. She cooked it in a pressure cooker, so the vegetables were just tender enough, and you could taste everything. It was sublime, and ruined me for everyone else's.

Two years ago, I went to Cherokee, NC. for the Indian Festival, with a friend of mine. One of her Cherokee friends offered us bear stew. His own recipe, from a bear he had killed. I approached it with fear and trepidation, but I wasn't going to be rude and refuse. It tasted just like my mom's beef stew! I asked the guy where he'd found my mom's recipe.