Commercial selling horse meat, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

Great commercial.  Where'd he find that sweater?

But I don't follow you.  Why is horse meat any more or less gross than any other kind of meat?

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobbyTChef26 

 

So, is this some kind of joke or what? Regardless, the topic alone is altogether gross

No joke, http://ideas.time.com/2011/12/28/the-case-for-eating-horse-meat/?xid=gonewsedit
 

Here's another link: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/23/horse-slaughterhouses-could-return-to-us/

Horses have been meat animals in France for at least a couple centuries.  While consumption appears to be declining a bit, there are French butchers and restaurants that specialize in horse.  There was legislation proposed in 2008 that would have banned the sale of horse meat, but AFAIK, it didn't pass.  I believe horse is also consumed regularly in Italy as well.  It is mostly the US and UK where people have an aversion to eating horse because they see them as pets.

"French livestock associations — including those representing horse breeders and riders — note that over 95% of all horses in France are bred first and foremost for their ultimate marketing as meat. In 2008 alone, nearly 16,000 horses were slaughtered for that purpose in France — providing an income that riding centers, racing stables and other horse-related interests rely on to remain profitable. Horsemeat is also the main source of revenue for just over 1,000 horse-butcher shops in France, which were traditionally the only places in France to sell the meat, though in recent years, some ordinary butchers and food stores have also begun offering prepackaged cuts. Horsemeat brings in a tidy sum too: sales amounted to $238 million in 2005, the last year for which figures are available."

I was raised in France and as kids, once in a while we had a horse steak. It was more expensive than beef, but leaner and considered very good for your health. That's why our mum cooked it for us as kids. I never loved it, it was ok, but had kind of a bitter aftertaste kind of. 

I wouldn't be shocked if you served me horse today, and would probably eat it, but if I never have it for the rest of my life I won't miss it. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Colin 

But I don't follow you.  Why is horse meat any more or less gross than any other kind of meat?

Agreed. I don't see what's gross about horse meat, as opposed to beef, rabbit, chicken, lamb, veal etc... if anything the horses are probably raised more humanely than the chicken and the veal. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by French Fries 

Agreed. I don't see what's gross about horse meat, as opposed to beef, rabbit, chicken, lamb, veal etc... if anything the horses are probably raised more humanely than the chicken and the veal. 

 

you mean like eating Flicka?

joey

I was thinking maybe Mr. Ed.

flicka, mr. ed, trigger, secretariat...what's next,  rin tin tin? smokey? then who....your neighbor jack? the kids? the cat? all for the sake of eating meat? sorry, but i'm not buying it....who's buying Trigger meat? more importantly, who's selling it? the gov? a few years back burgers were pulled from the school lunch programs nationwide from our government because they were found to contain horse meat, or i think maybe they were 100% horsemeat...has the government done a total 180 on this?...hmmmm...what's next?...usda guidellines for cooking horse, dog and cat meat...i don't think the american populace is going to (i'll take the pun), swallow this.. i say boycott, boycott, boycott...boycotts = less demand, less demand and then no demand = gone, gone, gone.........it is our responsibility to stand up to this useless, inhumane slaughter.

joey

My idea is that if you;re going to eat meat, you're going end up eating cute animals. If you don't want to eat cute animals, you shouldn't eat meat.   I never had a personal relationship with a horse, and so i don't feel bad eating their meat. 

Since I haven't seen the videos or links posted above i hope what i say isn't irrelevant or redundant. 

In the period when there were many cases of mad cow, i went off beef, but missed it terribly.  I went to one of the many horse butcher shops in rome and got horse meat.  It's very good, and tastes to me like beef probably used to taste before they began to fatten them up artificially and feed them full of hormones and antibiotics. 

In italy horse was traditionally given to children since it is or was considered, as french fries says, healthier, more nutritious.  It is apparently a little sweet, though i never really noticed that.  It's very dark red meat. 

Reading a little on internet, i saw that it's not a good deal to raise horses for meat since they require a lot of food and you don't get a return on the investment  - so generally they;re sold when they're adult after having been used for work horses, etc.  or  so it says on a couple of websites i saw, though i'm not sure how much you can trust random websites. 

What the name of an individual animal is seems completely irrelevant to whether others of his species are eaten or not.  we had a chicken called Mrs. Cluck when i was a kid - i still eat chicken. 

"Jack Russells are absolute buggers to bone, notoriously so, but yield a delicate, almost silky pâté that seems to welcome the careworn diner with both paws on the edge of the table, as it were."

From one of the excellent recipes in James Hamilton-Paterson's _Cooking with Fernet Branca_. 

a jack russell terrier are you kidding?...oh lordy....geez,not to be unladylike, but the thought of that makes me want to hurl ...guess you all have  stronger stomachs than i...i can eat a tomato sandwich and be in absolute heaven...do i need to have dead animal parts on it to have a good sammie?.....you guys are a bit tough actually....and another thought, they are not the cream of the crop being sold,...it's the old guys,the sick and infirmed most probably.......just another bonus...great, old tough meat...makes you really feel like wrestling up a horse steak....i'm beat to the bone right now, but i promise to get back with you about this.....this is inexcusable and unnecessary...shame on you for even thinking it's okay to eat them...shame on you all!! don't you have enough meat choices?...all i can say colin is i hope you'e pushing my leg about jack, that i'm not gettng the joke or something...it's really sick....where is gary larsen when you need him?  as an aside, i have eaten my share of dog and cat, totally unbeknownst to me.....it was in the caribbean along time ago, in a chinese restaurant we use to go to alot in st maarten. it was found out that they were skinning cats and dogs in the basement..guess someone figured out there were never any cats or dogs around the place, which in the caribean there's ALWAYS animals scrounging about...i was totally devasted and sickened and refused to eat any kind of meat for years...still makes my tummy quiver when i think of it....

siduri,

woman, have you no soul? trigger? mr ed? flicka? really?

joey

There is nothing dirtier then a Turkey, yet we consume quite a bit in this country. In some countries horsemeat, elk, moose, bear, deer, and snake  as well as insects are common everyday meals . It is all how you are raised and what you have been exposed to. We eat Veal which is baby cattle which could also be classified as inhumane. To each his own.

There is nothing dirtier then a Turkey,

I dunno, Ed. You ever clean a goose? I'd put them at the top of the list. But, yeah, turkey runs them a pretty close second.

Joey, I'm truly shocked by your reaction to this. The simple fact is, protein is protein. What forms of it we eat are determined by social, religeous, and psychological factors, not by the inherent value of the meat. Objectively speaking, a horse is a cow is a goat is a dog is a guinea pig is a large grub dug out of a log.

For us, dogs are pets and companions and work animals. But for many Native American tribes, they were self-mobile pantries. And that's still true among some Asian people.

The Western world looks at cows as the main protein souce, followed by pork and seafood. But Hindus won't eat beef. Arabs won't eat pig. Jews won't eat shrimp.

In general, predators are a poor meat choice, because their flesh tends to be strong tasting and stringy. Yet, the favorite meat of the American Mountain Man was mountain lion. They'd choose it over buffalo, venison, or even beef.

And what's the story on those pre-embyonic avians? I know you enjoy them.

ky, 

ooh, nice to know at my age i can still shock!.....i come from the view that questions why do we need yet ANOTHER source of protein, yet another animal to kill to satiate our caveman craving(need?) for meat?  we've been down this road many times here at CT, so i know where it's going, but i will press on regardless.....i'm not saying i'm right or that i have any answers, or that i even have it figured out...i don't. perhaps, yes, it does make me hypocritical because i do eat chicken, but the fact remains that we are mass producing animals just to feed our whims...we don't NEED them...we WANT them...big difference in my mind...as for what the indians ate and why...they had limited choices.....eating horse meat because it's your only choice is one thing...to actually dine on it is sickening..as always,(to me of course)

joey

I find it more than somewhat hypocritical for any omnivore to complain about people eating some specific kind of an animal (like horse). If you accept that you are going to use animals as a source of sustenance and deprive them of their natural run of their lives then what difference does the species make?

I am in agreement with those who shun is distaste eating Eqüs or donkey or mule ... asqueroso ...

I ride horses as a hobby, so I am a Fury, Mister Ed, Flicker and White Cloud enthusiast ...

No way, if it was the last piece of food on the planet ... I rather not ...

I am sure we all have a cultural culinary dislike for something ... Salma Hayek has been known to eat chapaleñas, crickets for dietary purposes as well as other Mexican and non  Mexican performing artists ... Amongst other actresses and actors ... and there has been a " Creepy Crawlers " food tendency amongst many cultures, for example, in Hong Kong ... However, NO thanks.

My younger daughter had made a business trip last year to Hong Kong, and there were all sorts of insects on the bill of fare. Nathalia was freaked.

Each to his or her own as we say ...

I think you're arguing two different points, Joey.

Is there a difference between want and need? You betcha. But one could argue, from that point of view, that we don't need restaurants; we don't need foods that nourish the soul as well as the belly; don't need anything more than a bowl of grains & legumes. So, that's one discussion.

But then you throw in "...to actually dine on it is sickening." and  "flicka, mr. ed, trigger, secretariat...what's next,  rin tin tin? smokey? then who....your neighbor jack? the kids? the cat?" which is a different sort of discussion. The question you have to ask is, why does the idea of eating horse sicken you when eating chicken doesn't? One explanation is that you have been socialized to anthropromorphize horses and dogs. We give them names, and think of them as people. Extending that further, why is it that you eat Elsie.

In the U.S., horsemeat would be a new protein, and your want vs. need argument might hold up. But the fact is, the U.S. is one of the few western nations where that is so. Horsemeat has always been popular in France, and Italy, and parts of Germany. Likely in other countries as well. And therein lies the difference. You have been raised to not think of horses as food, so the idea turns you off. But in those other countries the opposite is true, just as here you've been socialized to think of cows as food---an idea that would scandalize a Hindu. And if you really want to see the ultimate in this syndrome, look up the causes of the Sepoy Mutiny.

dhruan,

i prefer to think of myself as a walking paradox rather than a hypocrite.....

ky,

you said my argument might hold water if .... is that in 'you can lead a horse to water?'

joey

durangojo, I posted just after you and did not get a chance to review your post before submitting mine. So it was not aimed at you, more of my musings having read through the other posts. You do acknowledge between wants and needs and that is a good thing. I myself - while eating mostly vegan and vegetarian fare - do eat seafood and fish occasionally. So for me to cry foul *specifically* for other people eating horses would be hypocritical.

I do make a difference between the animals whom I believe to be sentient and cognizant - as in having the ability for higher level neurological functions as significant cognitive ability and memory - and those that do not. I fully admit that that does not exclude from my list of dietary habits beings that have the capability to experience pain. For them I wish the most humane - painless and quick - death.

 is that in 'you can lead a horse to water?

Cute!

Of course, I much prefer Dorethy Parker's version: You can lead a horticulture, but you cannot make her think.

KY  I know that but how many people on this site do you think have contacts with goose. Turkey today are fairly common to the average American  where as Goose may not be. So therefore the example I gave is for the average people, not people like you who have access to goose out their back window or local butcher shop.

In Vietnam  there were dogs on a stick roasting over a fire pit,  if they could find one. And maybe even a cat , but that was rare. A very popular chinese rest on Long Island NY was cited and closed in the 60s because cat pelts were found in dumpster. Owners defense was ''But they were only for the staff''

Sounds like I shouldn't be posting Hamilton-Paterson's recipes for smoked cat.  But I do recommend _Cooking with Fernet Branca_ for light holiday reading.

A bit more seriously, take a look at http://menus.nypl.org/menus -- a lovely site for anyone interested in food history.  One of the things that jumps out, if you look at menus from a century or so back, is how much more varied the available flesh and fowl used to be.  

It's entirely consistent to argue *both* for greater variety of meat *and* for less overall consumption of it.  (My daily diet, FWIW, is vegetarian: flesh, fowl, and fish are very occasional indulgences.)  So I'm with Durangojo on scaling back reliance on meat for basic sustenance.  Part of the problem, I think, is that artificially cheap and relatively tasteless chicken beef and pork, unsustainably factory-farmed, have crowded out a greater variety of animal protein.  If you're interested in sustainability, eating horses makes total sense.  

A pity the sale of game animals is illegal in the U.S., though I'm sure there's an informal market if you ask around ... there's a lot of venison and boar out there.

As I understand it, there's a Federal law against slaughtering horses for food, even if the meat is to be exported.   The European market for horsemeat is very large but our horses must be shipped out of the country for slaughter to serve that market. I think many go to Mexico and Canada for processing.

I don't much care for the idea, but it's certainly a cultural thing.  I've never been a horse person, but I would still be reluctant to eat it.

I once had a very nice monkey stew in Africa, though the host didn't mention it until after the meal. Then, he referred to it as "tree antelope."  I haven't looked to try it again. 

Mike

KY  I know that but how many people on this site do you think have contacts with goose

Haven't a clue, Ed. But I don't imagine all that many have contact with unprocessed turkies, either. So it's actually a moot question, for most people, cuz they really don't clean either one of them.

A pity the sale of game animals is illegal in the U.S.,

A minor nuance, Colin, but what's illegal is the sale of wild game. There's a thriving market for farmed raised game animals and birds.

Unfortunately, even if it were legal, it's doubtful that the resource could support market hunting anyway. Not in today's world of lost environments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeLM 

As I understand it, there's a Federal law against slaughtering horses for food, even if the meat is to be exported.   The European market for horsemeat is very large but our horses must be shipped out of the country for slaughter to serve that market. I think many go to Mexico and Canada for processing.

That's the law that Congress repealed, it is now legal to slaughter horses for human consumption.
 

Never said anything about processed or unprocessed, just said  turkeys are dirty. And most people are not familiar with geese.

not wanting to {ahem} beat a dead horse,(come on, you knew it was coming), but why would/should the fact that horse meat is eaten in europe, asia and other countries make a difference to what we do here in this country? does it make it okay? i know i'm on the wrong side of a losing battle here which clearly has no winners, but i'm like an 'occupy wall streeter' and i'm not going away!

joey

funny ky....i'm stealing that one!

http://youtu.be/tSsuohepbVk

It is not a question of what we should do, but what we are allowed to do.

One may or may not like a certain food or feel that a certain animal/vegetable should not be used for human consumption, that is well and good. But by what right does a government have the power to prevent consumption?
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by durangojo 

not wanting to {ahem} beat a dead horse, but why would/should the fact that horsemeat is eaten in europe, asia and other countries make a difference to what we do here in this country? does it make it okay? i know i 'm on the wrong side of a losing battle here and there are no winners, but i'm like an 'occupy wall streeter' and i'm not going away!

joey

 

http://youtu.be/tSsuohepbVk