It's universal in some villages and "is beginning to catch on" with urbanites and tourists.

Reasons: 1) It's cheaper than pork or chicken. 2) Easy to catch. 3) Yummy! 4) It's safer than eating birds, now that bird flu is going around. 5) The rat supply is up, because the cats and snakes that used to eat the rats are now being eaten by Southeast Asians. (Menu code for cats: "little tiger.")

Recipes: ground rat meat and chili, rat steamed with lemon leaves, rat stir-sautéed with spring onion and herbs. Vietnamese caveat: We don't eat sewer rats. Cultural argument against rat-eating: It's gross. Scientific argument: The next plague will arrive through rats, and people will go back to eating birds.