Cajun Chefs Transforming Rat-Like Bayou Pest Into Tasty, Trendy Snack

NEW ORLEANS - Down here in the bayou state, gigantic rats with 2-inch-long orange teeth are munching the marshes down to nothing.

But the people who gave us Cajun cooking are serving up a savory answer to their rat trouble - and soon they hope you will have a taste.

"We handle it the Louisiana way," says Robert Thomas of the Louisiana Nature and Science Center in New Orleans. "We eat it."

The idea here is to boil, bake, stew and fry these scruffy critters that are wrecking the swamps. Eat them in gumbo, in etouffee, in jambalaya, in breakfast sausage.

What the heck, snack on a rat.

"It's fantastic meat, it really is," insists Art Cormier, a retired gun-club manager and dedicated cook. "It's a shame that people think about the word "rat." This is not a rat that runs in the sewers and gets in the garbage."

True, this is a different class of rodent. Its common name is "nutria." But its tail is naked like a rat's. Its buckteeth are similarly menacing. Its fur looks just as scraggly. People call it a rat. In fact, the biggest difference seems to be that it's 15 or 20 times the size of the sewer-variety rat.

"I would put nutria in the same category as rabbit," assures Pete Giovenco, a New Orleans sausage-maker. "It's the same color, it's lean; the meat is tender."

If you're still squeamish, look for courage to celebrity chef Paul Prudhomme. Prudhomme is the spice-loving New Orleans cook who made America crazy for blackened redfish.

Now Prudhomme is lending his name and talents to the ruinous swamp rat. His nationally known K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, in the French Quarter of New Orleans, is expected to be the first here to feature nutria on its menu - probably as an appetizer, deep-fried in a manner similar to popcorn shrimp.

"When people come to New Orleans," he says, "they expect outstanding food and `unusual' food."

Maybe rat for dinner is a tad too rugged?

"If the animal is too cute, they have a problem eating it," says Giovenco, the sausage-maker and nutria stalwart. "If the animal is too ugly, they have a problem eating it. People have to make up their minds or just eat ice cream."

This rat called nutria is not native to the swampland of Louisiana - and they have few natural predators.

These days, Louisiana spends $40 million a year in wetland restoration, but "in some areas we might be losing as much land to nutria as we're saving with this money," says Greg Linscombe of the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

In Biloxi, Miss., 75 miles from New Orleans, Mayor A.J. Holloway recalls serving nutria barbecued and shredded on sandwich buns - at his daughter's graduation party.

Only when the party ended did he confide to guests that they had not eaten barbecued pork - but, well, swamp rat. "Nutria," he told them.

"A couple of them gagged," the mayor says unapologetically. "And a couple of them used it as an excuse to drink another beer or two."