Cat meat

Cat meat or cat flesh is meat derived from cats. It is eaten sporadically in southern China, northern Vietnam, Peru and Switzerland. Cat has also been eaten in . During wartime rationing, cats found their way into "rabbit" stews/pies and hence earned themselves the nickname "roof-rabbit".

This should not be confused with a British usage of Cat meat referring to the meat sold by a cat-meat man or cat's meat man , a person who sold skewers of horsemeat and beef to cat owners in the days before packaged petfoods. Meat from a cat would more usually be termed cat flesh.

In southern China and northern Vietnam some people consider cat flesh a good warming food during winter months. The cat's stomach and intestines are eaten, as well as the thighs, which are turned into meatballs. The head and the rest of the animal are thrown away. Cats are sometimes boiled and made into a tonic as a folk remedy for neuralgia and arthritis in Korea, though the meat by itself is not customarily eaten.

Because cats are regarded as carnivorous animals, consumption of cat meat is under or Islamic dietary laws.

Cat is a regular menu item in Peru and is used in such dishes as fricasse and stews. Cat cooking techniques are demonstrated every September at festival of Saint Efigenia in a town of La Quebrada.

Cats are eaten in some rural parts of Switzerland. The traditional recipe on farms in some regions involved cooking the cat with sprigs of thyme. . Also cat has been a traditional food in some parts of Northern Italy, particularly Vicenza, whose inhabitants are still nicknamed "magnagati"

Opposition

With the rise of pet cat ownership in China, more people have become opposed to the traditional use of cat as food. In June 2006, approximately 40 animal activists stormed the Fangji Cat Meatball Restaurant, a local restaurant specializing in cat meat in Shenzhen, China. They managed to force the restaurant to shut down and discontinue its selling of cat meat.

Those changes began about two years after the formation of the Chinese Companion Animal Protection Network, a networking project of Chinese Animal Protection Network. Expanded to more than 40 member societies, CCAPN in January 2006 began organizing well-publicized protests against dog and cat eating, starting in Guangzhou, following up in more than ten other cities "with very optimal response from public."