Rabbit

What do you get if you cross a rabbit with a stone? No, I don't know either.

Every time I go past hot-cross buns in the supermarket – or collect them off the shelf for teatime, because I do like them – I find myself grinning in most un-Good Friday fashion at that oldest of children's 'chestnuts': 'What do you get when you pour boiling water down a rabbit's burrow?' Answer: 'Hot cross bunnies....' Poor Easter rabbit!

In the French West Indies, it is suggested that one not buy rabbit (lapin) in a supermarket unless the package also contains the head.

Otherwise it might be cat (chat).

Also suggested is a creamy Dijonnaise sauce and a nice chardonnay.

Rabbit remembers me to »Alice In Wonderland« and so on to »Alice Behind The Mirrors«. Well, did I tell you 'last about the Jabberwocky?


Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxome foe he sought -
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

'And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy! –
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

~

On the Caribbean island of Martinique, market sometimes offer what is called Lapin Guadeloupean – Guadeloupe rabbit – that is actually a cat. Thus, in the French Antilles, one does not buy rabbit unless the meat is wrapped with the head and fluffy tail.