Airdate: Eat the Invaders
After tasting a traditional rabbit stew, Tony Armstrong wonders if this invasive species could make a comeback on modern dinner plates.
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New factual series Eat the Invaders, presented by Tony Armstrong premieres tonight on ABC.
In each episode Tony goes to the frontlines of the invasive species war to witness the impact they’re having on our ecology. Each week culinary experimentation occurs in a place known for exploring controversial ideas in art and food: Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona).
Also featuring are Mona Head Chef Vince Trim, Artist and Curator Kirsha Kaechele biologists Prof. Andrew Lowe & Prof. Phill Cassey plus guests.
In episode 1 Tony visits ground zero of the rabbit invasion, exploring why Australia abandoned a beloved cuisine and considers putting underground mutton back on the national menu.
The series is produced by Closer Productions.
Tony heads to Barwon Park in Winchelsea, Victoria, where English aristocrat Thomas Austin once introduced 24 rabbits, sparking one of the largest bio-invasions in history, all in the name of sport. A CSIRO scientist explains the environmental damage rabbits continue to cause and the science behind various eradication attempts. Will the rabbit problem ever be fully resolved?
Tony and historian Guy Hull visit the local butcher to buy wild rabbit but find none available, so they enlist a local hunter. The hunter bags two rabbits and reflects on his 50 years of ferreting for food – a once-common practice that has become rare.
With the rabbits dressed but no clue how to cook them, Tony and Guy turn to the local Country Women’s Association (CWA) for recipes. The women recall childhood memories of hunting, cooking, and eating rabbits, and how the introduction of viruses to control the population wiped out what was once a national dish. After tasting a traditional rabbit stew, Tony wonders if this invasive species could make a comeback on modern dinner plates.
At the Winchelsea town hall, Tony tests the CWA’s rabbit pies on local kids. Reactions are mixed – some enjoy it, while others don’t. Invasion biologists Phill and Andy reveal that the rabbit crisis has cost Australia $8 billion, pondering how that money could be allocated to their control.
Back at Mona, Tony goes down the rabbit hole with beloved chef Poh Ling Yeow for a high-art feast prepared by Kirsha and Vince.
8:30pm Tuesday January 7 on ABC (all episodes available to stream on ABC iview).
- Tagged with Eat the Invaders
3 Responses
We had rabbit stew and pie every week when I lived in central NSW..the rabbit man would come to our house with his van….do the “deed” in the back of the van after my mother picked out one and it was delicious…everywhere I went in NZ venison was on the menu…now people tuck into crocodile and kangaroo…which a lot of people have classed as invaders as well.
The South Sydney Rugby League team’s nickname is the ‘Rabbitohs’ after the street rabbit sellers of the last century or so-people also used to keep various poultry species and rabbits as backyard raised sources of food-mostly gone now as people’s standard of living has increased and spare space has reduced to almost nothing in modern suburbia-slaughtering and gutting no longer regarded as family fun time anymore either…
My father also went rabbiting and occasionally bring home a baby kit that never survived in captivity, he used to breed chickens including showing them at the local shows, some of the old “boilers” ended up on the chopping block and then the dinner table. I was allowed to have an Indian runner duck who died of old age and not via the chopping block. This was all part of how my generation grew up. Some people never saw it as “family fun” they saw it simply as economising and essential, and no different to growing their own produce. A lot of cattle farmers still slaughter an animal today to feed their employees. Some people living off grid are doing exactly the same including roadkill some of which have been on Ben Fogle’s “Where the Wild Men Are”….it is part of the circle of life… birth, survival and death.