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I've always enjoyed a variety of foods, and had a natural "nose to tail" sense even when young, but I've never attempted to eat brain or nerves.

I cooked a delicious whole, local fresh rabbit* the other night for my fiance and I, and we ate the legs for dinner, and we split the rest for lunch.

I ended up with the spine in my chest&back piece. As I finished the meat, some of the backbone broke free, revealing the spine. I extracted it whole, and thought "hrmmm..." and ate it. I can't say it was any better than the meat I ate, or particularly amazing. It vaguely reminded me of soft-but-still-firm marrow.

Are there any perks or perils to eating nerves or grey matter? I cannot find a thing on google about eating spinal cord, let alone any sort of nutritional info.

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Added 1 cup chopped white-end leeks, 4oz minced homemade hard pork sausage, 1/2 cup chopped re-hydrated dried chanterelles, some oregano, some parsley, ~1/4 cup olive oil, ~1tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1 bay leaf, and 1 clove into a dutch oven. Cut the rabbit into portions (reserving the organs), placed them in the dutch oven, covered with mix, and let sit over night. Next day, let pot warm a bit, seared pieces, turning, on stove top, added 2 cups chardonnay, got bubbling, braised in oven covered for 1.5hrs. Seared organs (heart, kidneys, liver) in reserved rabbit fat, topped kidneys w/ pinch salt. – greymouser Mar 14 2012 at 14:44
Offal confit? Dude, you should be asking why everyone else isn't doing the same. – Knarf Mar 14 2012 at 15:52

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I would be a little iffy about it- I heard of an occurrence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob variant in people who had eaten squirrel brains a couple years ago, so it's not confined to just cattle-

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/29/us/kentucky-doctors-warn-against-a-regional-dish-squirrels-brains.html

I'm not sure if it can be passed through spinal matter/fluid, but according to the Mayo Clinic, one of the diagnostic tests for CJD is testing for certain proteins in spinal fluid.

The rabbit recipe sounds awesome, btw.

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Bad idea. "Rabbits are not resistant to prion infection" http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/12/1120076109 and we already know that prions can cross species barriers from "mad cow disease"

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Uh... this falls into the "Frightening Food" category for me.

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 That a Rhodesian mix? – Travis Culp♦ Mar 14 2012 at 17:36
The rabbit or the spinal cord? The spinal cord wasn't good or bad to eat, but I could see why people may be weirded out. If it's the rabbit ... well, more for me then. :-D – greymouser Mar 14 2012 at 19:18
No'ena, that category can shift around. I was eating some Vietnamese pho the other day, and I was like, cool, tripe! cool, tendon! A few years ago those things would have made my stomach turn. – Dangph May 17 2012 at 22:32
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Im from israel, its not that common here but there are restaurants thats servers beef spinal cord, its very tasty and soft. Also - couldnt find any info on line, but its very eatable and very good. Enjoy

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