- PHNOM PENH (Reuters)
-- Bird flu may have decimated poultry businesses across Asia, but rat
dealers have never had it so good.
-
- "I've got a constant stream of customers,"
Van Vath, a rat butcher in the western Cambodian town of Battambang, told
Wednesday's edition of Cambodge Soir.
-
-
- With customers shying away from chicken for fear of catching
the deadly flu virus that has killed millions of birds and at least 20
people, she has been selling more than 400 pounds of rodent meat every
morning -- twice her normal turnover.
-
- In far-flung corners of the jungle-clad and impoverished
Southeast Asian nation, rat -- fried, grilled or roasted with garlic and
vegetables -- is a highly prized delicacy.
-
- It is not the only ingredient to be found scuttling on
the rural Cambodian menu.
-
- Spiders, water beetles, crickets, snakes, frogs and ants
are all choice treats, with local tradition saying they were first eaten
by starving peasants during the Khmer Rouge genocide in the 1970s.
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