International News

The European Union is close to banning all Canadian seal products, and a grassroots campaign to boycott Canadian fish and seafood is gaining momentum. But what of Europe's own barbaric culinary practices? In response, Full Comment will call attention to European hypocrisy and demand an immediate end to the brutal slaughter of helpless creatures. Today's poor victim of continental cruelty: mice...or possibly rat. It's hard to tell.

Thousands of years ago, Roman legions on the march brought along specimens of mice, known as edible dormouse or glis glis, which could be quickly fattened and then consumed as an emergency source of food, should the unit find itself unable to live off the land. That tradition lives on today, concentrated primarily in European Union member Slovenia, though glis glis poaching remains common in parts of Italy, as well.

The dormouse is a rodent, of course, and bears some superficial similarities to the common North American squirrel. A nocturnal creature, their loud squeaking makes them an easy target for human hunters, who can paralyze them with flashlight beams before killing them with a firearm or a well-thrust skewer. Various forms of wire or bladed traps are also common means of capturing dormouse. Dormouse hunting was especially popular in Slovenia due to a belief that Satan is their shepherd, meaning that the slaughter of a dormouse is not only a way to eat, but also a way to strike a blow against Satan. Even in modern times, stewing dormice with red wine and vegetables is a popular dish, as is fried chopped dormouse.

In Italy, where the hunting of dormouse is illegal, they have been poached almost to the brink of extinction in certain areas. Some Italians, facing increasing difficulties in finding dormice in the wild, have taken to raising dormice domestically, fattening them up before turning them into stew. Italian chefs, arrested for serving such stew, have offered as a defence that they aren't really serving the protected creatures, but are merely lying to their customers and feeding them common rats, instead. The wisdom of this legal defence remains in question, as serving rat is also illegal.

The National Post calls on all Canadians to boycott Slovenian agricultural products, until such time that this barbaric practice is brought to an end, and further calls upon the Italian government to crack down on the illegal poaching of dormice within their national borders that is threatening this peaceful species with extinction.

Matt Gurney
National Post

matt@mattgurney.ca