Here's another sent in by a read who get's 'em from Reuters... are they affiliated with the National Inquirer in some way...?
Rats Back on the Menu
HANOI (Reuters) - Rats are back in season in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, with tonnes being brought to the market daily by rice farmers for sale to bars and restaurants. The Tuoi Tre Chu Nhat (Youth Sunday) Magazine said at least three tonnes of rats were being brought to market daily in the southern province of Bac Lieu. They are destined to be served up as rat sour soup, fried rat, curried rat and grilled rat, all popular dishes in the rice farming Delta, where the rodents are a scourge for crops.
Rat meat is sold at $1.70 per kg for top cuts down to $0.80 for the lowest grade, the paper said. The report said data from the Bac Lieu Agriculture and Rural Development Service showed up to 270,000 rats had been caught on 84,000 acres of rice fields in the province so far this year. It said rat catchers were managing to earn up to $4 a day.
They were disappointed last year when heavy floods that lasted for months in the Delta nearly wiped out the rat population, but the phenomenal reproductive rate of the rodents means no shortage lasts for long.
Yum... git me a bowl 'o that Rat Stew, please... and don't fergit the tail!