Yes, this is a real cookbook.
"Roadkill Cafe — You kill 'em, we grill 'em!"
— old joke
A character makes a meal out of a roadkill.
In fiction this is typically treated as the province of the Half-Witted Hillbilly: it's a Stock "Yuck!" for ostensibly more sophisticated urbanites, because why would a sophisticate ever want to eat something they literally ran over and then threw in the back of the truck? It's like eating carrion. This also appears in post-apocalyptic Scavenger World where everyone, usually Disaster Scavengers, has to scavenge to survive, even including eating carrion.
In actual fact, this is Truth in Television and a lot more common and less extreme than it sounds. Rural people may not be able to afford to be picky, and fresh roadkill isn't inherently any more dangerous to eat than a conventionally hunted animal. It does need to be fresh though: if it's been on the road more than a couple of hours, and especially if you don't actually know how long it's been there, then you should probably leave it for the buzzards. Also, the legality of collecting roadkill varies by jurisdiction, so if you want to try it yourself, look up your local laws first.
Sub-trope of Extreme Omnivore. Compare Eat Dirt, Cheap and Reduced to Ratburgers for other tropes about eating something gross.
See Scavengers Are Scum for cases where carrion-eating animals are portrayed as vile.
Examples:
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Comedy
- One of Jeff Foxworthy's "You Might Be a Redneck" anecdotes, relayed to him by a fan, involves a Southerner who ran over a beaver in his truck and collected it to take home. While he was showing off how intact it was to his passengers, the beaver suddenly regained consciousness and bit his nipple off.
Comic Strips
- Garfield: On a cooking show Garfield is watching, the cook decides to bring a squirrel he ran over on the way to work and use it as part of a meal he's going to make.
Film — Live-Action
- The Beverly Hillbillies in The Film of the Series, as the Clampetts are driving to their new mansion, Granny urges Jethro to stop the truck because she sees a fresh kill in the road and that it would be a waste not to collect it. Jed agrees saying that roadkill stew sounds great. Later, when the Drysdales are attending dinner at the Clampett's we see them serving the roadkill animals althought they appear to have been barbecued instead of stewed.
- Savannah Smiles: One of the Stupid Crooks scrapes up supper off the side of the road. The other crook understandably refuses to eat it.
Jokes
- There are several jokes involving asking someone to answer the phone with a ridiculous slogan for a business which often falls under Black Comedy, usually as a way to ward off telemarketers. One such slogan is "Roadkill Cafe - you kill 'em, we grill 'em!"
Literature
- Animorphs: Tobias, being stuck as a hawk due to Shapeshifter Mode Lock in the first book, occasionally angsts about eating roadkill as it's easier than hunting for prey.
- In the Discworld spinoff Mrs. Bradshaw's Guidebook to the Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Railway, it's mentioned that the temple of Aniger, Goddess of Squashed Animals (mentioned in The Last Hero as growing in popularity due to faster coaches and better roads, and now even more so due to the railway) sells a book of track-kill recipes.
- Wild Cards: This is part of the schtick of Gordon the Ghoul, the forensic pathologist of the police station in the Fort Freak trilogy of novels. Half the cops of the police station in Jokertown are wild carders (humans mutated by an alien virus), and the thing with Gordon is that he is actually a normal human who is weird enough in both physical appearance and behaviour to be commonly mistaken for a joker (someone with physical or mental deformities due to the virus). Part of that image comes from his obsession with roadkill, which he will defend at all times with speeches about this great source of nutrition that America is overlooking.
Live-Action TV
- All About Me: "A Dog Called Wonga" reveals that in spite of their Bourgeois Bohemian tendencies, Charles and Miranda are perfectly fine with eating dead animals they find on the side of the road.
Sima: But I thought you were vegetarian?
Charles: Oh, oh, we are. We're very strict vegetarians.
Miranda: But we always eat animals we find dead at the side of the road. It doesn't increase the demand for meat and, well, it would be a tragedy to waste all that protein.
Charles: Yes, it's a way of recycling the animal into our own bodies. And it's the highest tribute that one can pay a fellow creature. - Burn Notice: Discussed in "Unpaid Debts". Sam's service buddy Virgil offers him and Michael alligator steaks as an additional payment for helping him repossess a boat. Later they have to stash Virgil at Michael's mother's house, and Mike explodes the next morning after finding out Virgil and Madeline found a Commonality Connection and slept together, arguing that he lives in a trailer (true) and gets half his meals from roadkill (unproven).
Madeline: Stop being so judgemental, Michael! Your father had problems, too!note
- Doc Martin: In the episode "Midwife Crisis", Bert Large's new chef Marigold starts bringing in roadkill to cook, explaining that her family have always eaten it. She initially claims that they only eat animals they've hit themselves, but later, while driving with Bert, she finds a dead rabbit by the side of the road, gives it a good sniff, and proclaims it "fresh as a daisy", dismissing Bert's concerns by comparing it to eating a windfall apple. Meanwhile, however, her husband starts to become seriously ill, while she herself becomes fatigued and develops a sore throat; turns out their habit of eating spoiled meat has given them both toxoplasmosis.
- North Woods Law: Occasionally, larger game animals like deer and moose that have been hit are seen being given to charities who will then give the meat to needy individuals.
- RFDS (2021): Eliza responds to a call from an Aboriginal family who suffered some injuries hitting an emu on a motorcycle, and when the patient with a head injury refuses to go to the hospital (a result of Australia's fraught history with indigenous relations), she decides to camp out with them overnight to observe the patient. She's startled to find the dead emu in the back of their truck and is told it's good meat and they shouldn't waste it. While initially put off, she agrees the fire-grilled emu meat is delicious.
- In the pilot of Son of a Critch, the Critch family resorts to eating a moose that got fatally hit by a car near their house, because it was free meat and all they had to do was drag it back to the house and carve it up.
- Top Gear (UK): In "Series 9, Episode 3 — America Special", one of the challenges given to the three presenters was that they would have to spend a night camping and only be allowed to eat whatever they found at the side of the road. Clarkson found an opossum but May ran over it. They then found a tortoise but refused to run it over and set it back in a nearby swamp. Hammond found a squirrel that was collected and spent a while trying to figure out how he would "peel" it. As Hammond and May set up camp, Clarkson went to look for more roadkill; he came back with an enormous dead cow.
Music
- Songdrops: "The Dead Armadillo" ends with the singer cooking the dead armadillo he found on the road, despite having previously mourned it.
- The song "Five Pounds of Possum" by Tim White centers on a recently laid-off man who spots a possum while driving home. He gleefully plans to run it down so he and his hungry kids can eat the meat and his dog can have the bones.
Radio
- Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: In the 22 July 2023 edition of "Not My Job", former NBA player Damien Lillard, famous for "buzzer-beaters", was given the subject "buzzard eaters", i.e. roadkill cuisine. The first question had to do with why an annual roadkill cooking contest held in Texas might knock off points,note while the second was about a roadkill cook who got special recognition for "Stripped and Shaved Beaver Tail".note
Restaurants
- The Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain plays with this with a meal entitled Roadkill. It is a chopped steak smothered with cheese, onions, and mushrooms, and is usually the cheapest entree on the menu.
Stand-Up Comedy
- Jeff Dunham's redneck puppet Bubba J sings "Roadkill Christmas", which focuses on this trope.
Toys
- The Wacky Packages sticker "Hill Billie's", a parody menu of the Chili's restaurant chain, labels itself as "The Roadkill Grill". Such options on the back of the sticker for the menu include "Gourmet Gopher", "Roadkill Ribs" (in motor oil BBQ sauce), and "Possum Pie" (which is just pretending to play dead).
Video Games
- Freaky Flyers: Mick Bungadoo's main character trait is him finding and cooking roadkill for his restaurant chain, "Mick Bungadoo's Road-Kill Restaurant".
- Grand Theft Auto V: Discussed; one of the random quotes Trevor Phillips can say if the player runs over a coyote is "guess it's coyote for dinner".
- The Prince of Landis: One of the requests that the Guest (an alien) gives to Evan is to find a corpse of a rabbit, which has been killed by a vehicle, so that it can have its fill. As long as it's a meat, the alien isn't particularly picky when eating (much to Evan's disgust).
- The Simpsons Hit & Run: Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel has a gig collecting roadkill for Krusty Burger to make into their product, with Apu having grievance for the competition (No one sells rotten food in Springfield but him). One level with Bart has him helping Cletus collect roadkill and avoid Apu, and one level later has Lisa helping Apu collect Cletus' cargo.
Bart: Krusty Burgers are made from roadkill? That explains the tire tracks.
Webcomics
- Freefall:
- Sam Starfall's Extreme Omnivore species can find roadkill quite palatable. Florence refuses to eat a road-killed possum, but is on the verge of reconsidering when she sees the kind of Lethal Eatery Sam frequents.
- Helix doesn't have the heart to watch Florence hunt a deer but accepts the compromise that she'll eat one that's been road-killed. She then brains a deer with a piece of the road.
- Sam Starfall's Extreme Omnivore species can find roadkill quite palatable. Florence refuses
- Kevin & Kell: Some species find roadkill a delicacy. In one strip Kell goes so far as to use ground asphalt as seasoning.
Western Animation
- The Cleveland Show: Lester, Cleveland's redneck neighbor, has been known to bring roadkill home for dinner. Case in point, in the second episode after Cleveland accidentally runs over his stepson's dog, he asks Lester to get rid of the body, which he does by eating it, much to Cleveland's disgust.
- Futurama: In "Xmas Story", for Xmas dinner Bender serves a dead parrot that Fry was gonna gift to Leela til it got blown up by a missile by Robot Santa.
Fry: Uh, Bender... where did you get that bird?Bender: I found it lying in the street, like all the food I cook.
- Total Drama: Chef apparently owns a café where they serve roadkill. Sundays are "Bring Your Own Meat."
Chef: You hit it, we spit it!
