Beginning here with a confession: I have never dined on whitetail jackrabbit. When I write about culinary topics, I generally do so from considerable personal experience, but here I am, reading an essay under the title, “Jackrabbit Pie,” and I may not know what I am talking about.
Because years ago, curious, I asked an experienced woman who I reckoned knew her way around a kitchen if she knew how to cook jackrabbit. She said yes. It required onions, lots of onions, and time, lots of time, a long, slow braise. From which I concluded, this isn’t worth the trouble, and a jackrabbit is probably hard to skin, anyway. And a hare that runs 40 miles per hour has to be pretty stringy.
Now, in Mammals of the Northern Plains, a masterly work of reference, I read, “The species generally is considered superior to the blacktailed jackrabbit as food, because whitetails are somewhat heavier and the meat has a more pleasant taste.” But there is that weaselly passive voice, “is considered,” which leaves me in doubt that any of the authors of Mammals of the Northern Plains ever ate jackrabbit, either.
Let us consult the authorities, the people of the prairies. There are many casual references to dining on jackrabbit pie or jackrabbit stew — never on roast or fried jackrabbit. The first reference I find is in the spring of 1885 when a settler named Hawkes picked up a fieldstone, killed a rabbit with it, and then enjoyed rabbit pie with his family.
Even in territorial times, jackrabbit was not a preferred source of protein. The Hope Pioneer in early December 1886 noted that with recent cold weather, farmers were killing chickens and hogs for winter consumption. “Those that had no hogs to kill,” the editor observes, “commenced killing jack-rabbits for their winter’s supply.”
There was a local winter trade in rabbit carcasses, however. In January 1889 the Alert in Jamestown announced, “Jack-rabbits are hung up by the heels in front of the meat markets. ‘They are just as good to eat as any rabbit,’ said one of the market men today, ‘and a good many people are fond of them.’”
Read the local reportage carefully, and it becomes plain that the consumption of jackrabbit pie or stew was a convivial ritual, something to engage in with invited friends on a lark. A Riverside correspondent in 1888 reported on an old bachelor who organized such culinary adventures: “Four ladies and nine gents helped one of our old baches eat jack-rabbit and Johnny cake the other day. He says, ‘Come again,’ for he has two more jack-rabbits frozen up ready to cook.”
All seems well in this 1906 report from Langdon: “Monday evening Pastor G. L. Wilson of the Presbyterian church and six of his boys were entertained at a jack rabbit supper, their hostess being Mrs. McGruer ... The pie supper was voted as being a huge success by the entire party and the boys and their leader are organizing a hunt for another jack rabbit and another pie.” A poet published in the Oakes Times in April 1891, however, advised any young man seeking a wife to raise his culinary standards: “He must forget jack-rabbit stew / Is cheap and most nutritious too.”
Whatever its social niche, jackrabbit persisted as at least an occasional offering in local markets. In 1912 and 1913 journalists noted that jackrabbits were “exceedingly plentiful” in the eastern part of the state and were appearing in Fargo shops. Zervas Market of Moorhead listed jackrabbits as a delicacy, and Hauser Brothers of Fargo advertised “Large White Jack-rabbits, Each 40₵.” Let’s see, an 8-pound rabbit, dressed out to perhaps five, that’s eight cents a pound — about half the price of chicken at the time.
So perhaps someone in our prairie land will advise me as to whether I really want to try jackrabbit. Only if you’ve done it yourself.
