One of my father's uncles, Carmine from Marineo outside Palermo, kept a few rabbits. During one of our visits to Babylon, Long Island NY I played with them inside their hutches. I was about 7 or 8 years old and loved animals but because we lived in a tenement building in Brooklyn NY there was no room for pets or "back yards" for dogs, etc. After a couple of hours we all gathered around to watch the older men play bocci and then washed our hands and sat down to dinner. My mother placed a "chicken" leg & thigh in my plate and after one bite I told her that I did not like the way it tasted. She squeezed half a lemon on the "chicken" & said "eat it" in a stern voice which I did. Several years after, I found out that my "gamy" chicken dinner was from the rabbits I had been playing with. The rabbit (conigliaro) is a perfectly acceptable food in Siciy. I still will not eat it today.