Jackrabbit Processing

at Antelope Cave, Arizona

 
 

Culinary processing (Gifford-Gonzalez, 1993) consists of a wide variety of techniques for converting raw animal packages into edible resources. Although the particular cooking method employed may be largely culturally driven, each method varies considerably in the amount of energy required and the nutritional benefits returned, factors that are likely a driving force in determining the method used for food preparation. The decision-making process for determining the extent of culinary processing should be context-specific depending on the (1) associated costs for each possible method and (2) alternative returns from capturing and processing other animals.


Different cooking methods can frequently be arranged on an ordinal scale of the amount of energy inputted. For example, a jackrabbit could be simply skinned, dressed, and roasted on a fire. Alternatively, cutting up the animal (e.g., quartering) with little extra energy, but doing so might reduce cooking times and fuel costs. Stewing may require additional energy, especially since it requires additional technologies, such as pots. These methods generally target the meat of an animal, but fats located in the bone may be obtained through grease extraction (boiling bones essentially) and opening bones to access nutritious fat from the marrow.


Briefly, I expect that people should continue to input energy into processing as long as marginal benefits still outweigh the costs of processing. However, one must also consider the availability of other resources--there is little reason to continue to cook a rabbit with low fat content (hence “rabbit starvation”) if one can capture a deer relatively easily.




Figure: Marginal cost-benefit of different processing techniques for leporids. Processing

methods include roasting whole animals (R1), roasting sectioned animals (R2), stewing (S), marrow extraction (M), and pulverizing (P).

 

Culinary Processing

Jacob Fisher takes full responsibility for the information posted. The information on this page represents that of Jacob Fisher and not that of California State University Sacramento.

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Last updated on January 5, 2011