Italian TV Host: Cat Stew is Delicious

(AP)  Italian state TV has suspended a cooking show host who shocked the nation by saying cat stew is a Tuscan delicacy he swears he has enjoyed many times.

RAI TV confirmed on Wednesday that it had suspended Beppe Bigazzi, the 77-year-old host of a popular morning program that offers food tips and recipes in a country fiercely proud of its cuisine.

When his 27-year-old female co-host looked stunned as Bigazzi said he has eaten cat stew "many times," the white-haired, grandfather figure defended his tastes.

"Why, people maybe don't eat rabbit, chicken, pigeon?" Bigazzi said. He could have added horse meat, which many butchers and supermarket meat departments stock.

"Who's not fat, kills the cat," is how Bigazzi began his lighthearted prattle about cat stew.

Bigazzi claimed cat stew was a Tuscan specialty near the Arno river valley, but co-host Elisa Isoardi looked so embarrassed she ducked behind a cart of fresh salad greens whose healthy virtues the two were supposed to be chatting about.

"Cat, soaked for three days in the running water of a stream" in Tuscany "comes out with its meat white, and I assure you I have eaten it many times that it is a delicacy," Bigazzi continued.

His critics included Health Ministry Undersecretary Francesca Martini.

"Cats are pets protected by law," Martini noted, specifically against "cruelty, maltreatment and abandonment."

She lamented in a statement issued by the Health Ministry that Bigazzi's advocating cat stew "hurts sensibility, which is fortunately steadily growing, of citizens toward animals."

The director of the RAI channel the show runs on, Mauro Mazza, called the decision to suspend Bigazzi for an unspecified amount of time as "painful but inevitable."

Only a few moments after revealing his startling recipe, Bigazzi seemed to anticipate he would be barraged with criticism. "Now there will be letters from nature lovers. Why don't they defend rabbits?" he asked.

By Wednesday, two days after the showed was broadcast, the YouTube video clip had recorded more than 55,000 hits, and more than 800 comments registered.

[sunakochan]

My personal opinion is that is horrible, eat a cat, like eat a dog or any other animal (is the reason why I'm vegan). But this is not about ideals of what can & what can't be eaten, in Italy there is a specific law that protect affection's animals (every animal that we keeep in our home)like dog and cat. Bigazzi induce people to acting against the law, bye saing that he likes to eat cats and he find their meat "delicious" (on the public television)...someone at home could think " great...let's try, maybe is good"...its incitement to crime!

[Shocktribe]

I'd eat a cat, if it was any good. What's the problem?

[Shocktribe]

I'd eat a cat, if it was any good. What's the problem?

[petepothead]

**** Of all the retarded reasons to get in trouble, this has got to be in the top 5. He didn't actually cook a cat on the air, he did not advertise the name of the restaurant where he actually ate the cat, he did not torture or even harm any cats himself, and yet the morons took him off the air. Finally there is someone I might actually watch on a cooking show and he is forced off the air. Not eating cats because they make good pets doesn't make any sense. Either you eat meat or you don't eat meat. The specific breed makes no difference.

[commenter777]

People that wouldn't eat cat have never been very hungry.

[zwaggsy]

Reading some of the comments on this article reminds of the Dennis Leary joke about holding animal auditions, all the cute animals get a pass while the the cows get turned into baseball gloves!

TexFandango raised a fair point, can we all assume his critics would rather see thousands of people starve just to satisfy their own righteous ideals of what can & what can't be eaten?

[Ron-in-Siberia]

sick ****

[tdentino]

What a DOPE !!!!

[cyclingpete]

Ive eaten *****. It's great!

[ilyaquiss]

human have eaten humans in the past. I love cats and for the same reason I wouldn't eat humans (I hope I never have to) I don't eat cats. I think that this italian scumbag chef needs to change habits, this ain't no facking Melmak and he is not Alph.