There was disbelief and outrage when a London restaurant put squirrel on the menu. Cookery pundits in the news veered from 'Quite tasty, rather like rabbit' to 'I'd never eat squirrel - it'd be like eating a rat.'

Fergus Henderson, at the St. John restaurant in Smithfield, said the difficulty was not selling his braised squirrel dish but finding the 40 or so squirrels (grey only - never red) he needed each week.

Perhaps it's just as well the culinary delights now available to German diners haven't reached the UK yet. A Berlin restaurant has just launched cockroach pasta, grasshopper and locust couscous and sauteed maggots with greens!