Funny, I was just wondering whatever happened to Louisiana’s attempt to promote the eradication of nutria through eating it.

Apparently, it went belly-up, as it were. Now people are just encouraged to shoot them on sight–as I learned from Showdown at the West Esplanade Canal, a piece by Darrin DuFord in the new issue of Perceptive Travel.

Once you get past the gunfire, there’s a bit of info in there about the earlier attempted culinary makeover.

I don’t think I’d be too grossed out to eat nutria; and I think I’ve eaten a big rodent before, and it didn’t taste so bad. I’ve eaten pigeon, which many consider one step away from rat, and it was damn delicious.

But then I don’t have to live with nutria every day. And in the right light, they’re not so much ugly ratty vermin as otter-cute. The twin poles of inedibility, in a single animal. Confounding!