Detroit-area Roman Catholics have one more dining option during Lent than most other followers of the faith. The culinary appeal of that item, however, is up for debate. A long-standing permission allows local Catholics to eat muskrat _ a furry, marsh-dwelling rodent native to the area _ “on days of abstinence, including Fridays of Lent,” according to the Archdiocese of Detroit. The custom dates to the region’s missionary history in the 1700s and is especially prevalent in communities along the Detroit River. Missionary priests “realized that food was especially scarce in the region by the time Lent came around and did not want to burden Catholics unreasonably by denying them one of the few readily available sources of nutrition _ however unappetizing it might be for most folks,” said Edward Peters, an expert on canon law who is on the faculty at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.
