Cat stew, according to Italian celebrity chef Giuseppe "Beppe" Bigazzi, is an old Tuscan "delicacy" — and a pure pleasure to eat. But his enthusiastic on-air recommendation of cat meat — "better than chicken, rabbit, or pigeon" — has landed the 77-year-old in hot water with the Italian public, and amid a flood of outrage he's been fired from the popular cooking show he'd hosted for 10 years. Bigazzi has protested that he was referring to meals eaten "70 years ago," and that the furor is unwarranted. With stray cats being euthanized by the millions, is it really so shocking to suggest eating a few here and there? (Watch Beppe Bigazzi recommend eating cat)
Bigazzi is barbaric: Why would anyone "harm a cat, let alone eat one"? asks JoAnne Thomas in Right Cuisine. It's disgusting, and it's inhumane. Cats are in many ways "more 'human' than we are" — they sense danger better, and make better parents — and even thinking about "typing cat and recipe in the same sentence" makes me want to vomit. The Italians fired Bigazzi? "Good on them!"
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