6 January, 2015. 15:34
ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A GROUND BREAKING new cooking show teaching viewers recipes and cooking techniques from the Depression has been removed from YouTube just hours after it aired because it contained graphic images of how to catch, skin and butcher a cat.
During the first episode, 97-year-old Frank Webster began by showing that a banana peel boiled with plain rice is enough to flavour it – a trick he picked learned growing up in a Bulimba slum.
However, after that recipe, the show took a dark turn.
After fashioning a “shanghai”, more commonly known as a slingshot, Mr Webster led the production team out onto the balcony of his Mooloolaba apartment. After a short pause, he spotted a cat on the opposite rooftop and used a sinker from his tacklebox to shoot it.
The cat, who’s alleged owner is still unaware of its fate, then fell nine storeys to the common pool below.
“I guess cats use up one life per storey!” said Webster to the camera. “Let’s go fish him out before somebody sees.”
Returning to his apartment on the top floor, Webster then proceeded to skin the cat and butcher it in his kitchen sink.
“We can either roast it whole or de-bone it and make a nice mince,” said Webster.
Queensland Police have launched an investigation into the incident, citing that “should enough evidence exist to charge Mr Webster, it would still feel kind of bad putting handcuffs on somebody so old.”
“I’m pretty sure Mr Webster was a Rat of Tobruk,” said a Sunshine Coast police spokesman. “At his age and for the service he’s given this country, I’d almost point blank refuse to arrest him. I mean, it’s just a fucking cat?”
Eating cat was very common during the tougher times in the 1930’s. As the animal existed freely among the population and lived of a diet of vermin, it only made sense that people would start eating them.
