Cat meat does taste somewhat like chicken, though the comparison isn’t exact. People who have eaten it consistently describe a light, white meat with a mild flavor that falls somewhere between chicken and rabbit. It’s leaner than chicken, with less fat, and the texture can be stringy if not prepared carefully.
How Cat Meat Actually Tastes
The most common description from people who’ve eaten cat is a light-colored meat that’s milder and leaner than you’d expect. Some compare it to a cross between chicken and rabbit, while others say it’s closer to pork when ground. The meat itself is not particularly fatty, which means it can dry out or become tough without proper preparation. “Stringy” is a word that comes up often.
There’s actually a biological reason so many meats get compared to chicken. A researcher writing in the Annals of Improbable Research found that the “chicken-like” flavor people recognize didn’t originate in birds at all. It arose much earlier in evolutionary history, and some version of it persists across all four-limbed vertebrates: amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. So when someone says cat “tastes like chicken,” they’re picking up on a baseline flavor profile shared by a huge range of animals. Cat does taste mammalian, with its own distinct quality, but it sits close enough to poultry on the flavor spectrum that the comparison makes sense.
Where Cat Meat Has Been Eaten
Cat meat has a longer and more geographically diverse culinary history than most people realize. In parts of southern China, particularly Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, cat is considered a warming winter food. A traditional dish called “dragon, tiger, phoenix” combines snake, cat, and chicken and is believed to fortify the body. In South Korea, cat meat was historically brewed into a tonic for joint pain rather than eaten as a main dish. A small bottle of cat soju, an alcoholic elixir, reportedly requires around 10 cats to produce and is thought to ease arthritis symptoms for a few weeks.
In Europe, cat consumption has surfaced repeatedly during periods of hardship. Cats were eaten in 18th-century France, with published recipes dating to 1740. During both World Wars, cat earned the nickname “roof rabbit” (Dachhase) in Central Europe. In parts of northern Italy, cat stew was common enough during World War II that an Italian food writer described it as “succulent” on national television in 2010. Indigenous Australians near Alice Springs still roast feral cats over open fire and have developed recipes for cat stew. In some cultures in Cameroon, cat-eating ceremonies are thought to bring good luck.
Legal Status in the U.S. and Abroad
In the United States, slaughtering cats or dogs for human consumption is illegal under the Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act, signed into law in 2018. South Korea passed its own ban in early 2024, with a three-year phase-out period that will make the breeding, slaughter, and sale of dog and cat meat fully illegal by 2027. The South Korean law was prompted by shifting cultural attitudes, particularly among younger generations.
Consumption remains legal or loosely regulated in parts of China, Indonesia, and a handful of other countries. In North Sulawesi, Indonesia, cat meat has been sold at the Extreme Market in the city of Tomohon.
Health Risks of Eating Cat Meat
Beyond the legal and ethical issues, eating cat carries real health risks. Cats are a primary host for Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite they pick up from eating infected rodents and birds. In humans, toxoplasmosis causes flu-like symptoms: muscle aches, fever, and headaches. For pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, the infection can be far more serious. Thorough cooking reduces the risk, but cats also carry a range of other bacteria and parasites that make them a riskier protein source than commercially raised livestock, which is subject to inspection and food safety standards that don’t exist for cat meat anywhere it’s consumed.