[HN Gopher] Eating horsemeat in France
___________________________________________________________________
Eating horsemeat in France
Author : WuTangCFO
Score : 74 points
Date : 2022-07-16 09:23 UTC (13 hours ago)
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| 12ian34 wrote:
| When I lived in NL, I took a trip to Maastricht which is a
| beautiful place right in the South and tried a popular local dish
| - Zoervleis[0] which is traditionally horse meat. It was
| delicious. It always amuses me that when I tell this story, it's
| often met with disgust - even by meat-eaters! "But, how could you
| eat horse! They're so nice!". Yeah... you eat beef, have you ever
| met a cow up close? They're also lovely creatures! I see this as
| double-standards - similar to how most meat-eaters also seem so
| disgusted by the idea of eating dogs in certain parts of Asia.
|
| [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoervleis
| Sharlin wrote:
| The psychology of eating animals is definitely a great example
| of how people compartmentalize and simply avoid thinking about
| the details too much in order to evade cognitive dissonance.
| Which is also why so many respond with hostility when prompted
| to do so. (Disclaimer: I'm an omnivore.)
| collegeburner wrote:
| tbh i dont get why people arent ok eating horse or dog. i've
| had both and they're fine, like why is this a problem? i will
| be the first to call out veganism but i also have _literally_
| been lectured by meat eaters about how me eating those 2 is
| wrong and then they have eaten a burger or steak in the _same
| day_.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Dog is clearly a special case. It's the most common pet in
| the USA; many people consider their dog part of their
| family.
|
| Dogs are known for forming such strong connections to their
| humans. On the spectrum between farmed-for-food and
| totally-off-limits, it's not hard to guess where we would
| put dogs.
|
| It's just like indians and cows. Cows have a special place
| in their culture, therefore they don't eat beef.
| atdrummond wrote:
| I'm not a vegan but I had a few cows growing up that
| basically became like pets. They would come up to me just
| to spend time and receive physical affection, they knew
| my voice, etc. I'm not sure if this reason for not eating
| dogs stands up to scrutiny for me.
| collegeburner wrote:
| ya lots of farm kids have pets like that and lots of us
| end up eating them later
| [deleted]
| Sharlin wrote:
| Many social norms are arbitrary. People don't do things
| because you're not supposed to do things and nobody else
| does (or at least admits doing).
| mise_en_place wrote:
| I think a lot of it comes from ancient tribal customs. Many
| pastoral/nomadic groups, like the Aryans, would only eat
| horses as a last resort. The horse was so important to the
| tribe's survival. Incidentally, the same taboo was probably
| applied to eating cows, as that animal was extremely
| important for Indo-Aryans' survival. Over time the original
| meaning of the taboo is lost, it just continues to get
| enforced by each subsequent generation.
| kodah wrote:
| Animals that are both higher intelligence in our perception
| and closer to us day to day will fall into the category of
| disgust, imo. For instance, I've had dogs my whole life.
| They're pretty deep creatures with emotions, intelligence,
| and personalities all their own. If you tell me that you
| ate what I have a personal connection to, what I consider
| my family - It's hard not to look at you in disgust.
| Similar to the disgust that people feel when they hear
| someone ate human flesh. The case with horses is similar.
|
| Cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs, and fish on the other hand
| are not similar at all. They often have short memories, and
| live pretty simple lives. Thus, it's a bit easier to look
| at them as purposes for lunch. I'd be curious if Hindus
| feel relative disgust over seeing folks eat cow, I think
| that might bolster this theory a bit.
|
| _That_ said, although I feel disgust over that stuff I don
| 't really say anything. If offered, I'd probably smirk and
| say, "That's not for me". Other cultures are allowed to, in
| my mind, enjoy things that might disgust me and vice versa.
|
| Edit:
|
| I'm also curious that if one day when all meat is lab grown
| if we'd ever feel those feelings of disgust. If the loss of
| what we view as potential personal connection is removed,
| it's entirely possible we wouldn't feel disgust at all.
| foobiekr wrote:
| Cows have much larger brains than dogs and are quite
| intelligent, and so are pigs. The "dogs are special"
| argument is a familiarity thing or perhaps a statement
| that dogs evolved to more effectively manipulate human
| emotions.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Cows may have larger brains, but they also have much
| bigger bodies. They aren't anywhere near as intelligent
| as dogs.
|
| Now, with pigs, you have a point. They're indeed very
| smart.
|
| I justify eating pigs by reasoning that pigs will happily
| eat humans if they get a chance (a few pig farmers lose
| their lives that way every year, plus there's the
| occasional serial killer...). Turnabout is fair play.
| kodah wrote:
| As I said, it probably has to do more with our aggregate
| personal connection to animals in a given culture,
| because that will influence how we perceive their
| intelligence.
|
| If you've read the studies I did, they're not very good.
| For instance, the test that asserted a pig is smarter
| than a dog was where they were tasked with moving a
| joystick designed for a monkey that controlled a cursor
| that they wanted moved into a blue region on a screen.
| I'll let you make your own judgements about how sound the
| testing with respect to the assertion is. My dog
| certainly has eyes that can be tuned to manipulate me,
| but she also has a sizeable vocabulary, a lot of tonal
| intuition, and this little heat seeker in her nose that
| quite literally syncs her heart rate with mine. There's a
| good amount of theory that says this adds up to empathy.
| rapnie wrote:
| > Animals that are both higher intelligence in our
| perception and closer to us day to day will fall into the
| category of disgust, imo.
|
| Think in general this holds to animals seen as pets. Like
| in the West with adorable little guinea pigs, which in
| the Andes Mountain regions are a food source. And it
| makes sense too if you live high in the mountains that
| get snowed in in the winter, to have a bunch of them
| living in your home.
| karaterobot wrote:
| In most cases, if you grow up eating something, it's normal.
| If you don't, it's unusual. Sometimes people think things are
| disgusting when they really mean they're not used to them. I
| think that explains about 95% of it.
| shroompasta wrote:
| me with escargot
| Sharlin wrote:
| I think there's an important distinction to be made between
| being disgusted by the thought of eating escargots and
| being _morally_ judgemental of the thought of eating
| horses. That said, it is not a far-fetched idea that moral
| disgust has its roots in the more visceral feeling of
| physical disgust, as evinced by the alimentary restrictions
| imposed by some religions.
| layer8 wrote:
| As an omnivore, at some point avoiding the dissonance became
| a zen of embracing the dissonance.
| treeman79 wrote:
| My small child. How do you spell chicken? Not the kind you eat,
| the bird.
|
| Oh my. We had some tears that day.
| ectopod wrote:
| Similarly, my young niece had surmised that chickens produce
| nuggets in much the same way they produce eggs.
| turbonaut wrote:
| In a way they do...
| jules wrote:
| If I'm not mistaken, the preparation of the dish (meat boiled
| in vinegar for several hours, then sweetened up with
| gingerbread and reduced apple juice) was traditionally intended
| to tenderise the tough meat of old farm horses that had been
| used for ploughing the land. Almost all restaurants prepare the
| dish with beef nowadays.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| I'm reminded of an old Joy of Cooking recipe for raccoon:
| Boil it in baking soda overnight, then throw away the water
| and braise it for another few hours iirc
| bombcar wrote:
| Many old dishes are like this - slow cooking, for example,
| really comes into its own when you're slow cooking a egg-
| laying chicken that is 3-5 years old vs the "grown for meat"
| ones these days that are barely 8 weeks.
| seanwilson wrote:
| > It always amuses me that when I tell this story, it's often
| met with disgust - even by meat-eaters! "But, how could you eat
| horse! They're so nice!". Yeah... you eat beef, have you ever
| met a cow up close? They're also lovely creatures! I see this
| as double-standards - similar to how most meat-eaters also seem
| so disgusted by the idea of eating dogs in certain parts of
| Asia.
|
| Doesn't this more indicate that many people deep-down think
| that eating animals is wrong and have these thoughts overridden
| by cultural preferences and tribalism, and that instead of
| resolving the above double-standard by embracing eating every
| kind of animal they could resolve it by not eating eat any?
| Where do you draw the line? You can find places and times in
| history where people ate dolphin, whales, cat, gorilla, and
| elephants too I think.
| t-3 wrote:
| No, it indicates that people are completely unaware and
| disconnected from their food. Most people would also be
| disgusted by having to pluck a chicken, slaughter their meat
| themselves, or even just make a sausage. Hell, I've seen
| people disgusted at harvesting vegetables from the garden,
| eating berries off the bush, or fermenting anything (Oh no,
| dirt and bugs and bacteria!).
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| Really deep down, i.e. at the level of hunger and what looks
| tasty to your body, eating animals is very right. They are a
| fantastic source of nutrition.
|
| However, we also like to domesticate animals, as companions
| and helpers. Hence the conflict.
|
| We eat way too much meat, but strict vegetarianism and
| especially veganism does not scale to the whole population of
| the planet - animals are simply too efficient at converting
| what we can grow everywhere but can't eat (grass mostly) to
| what we can eat. Simply, an exclusively plant based diet
| would require the elimination (by starvation?) of who knows,
| 90% of the world population?
|
| Of course, strict vegetarianism and especially veganism is
| not much more than social signalling for a particular and
| narrow demographic - the cultural preferences and tribalism
| you allude to.
| Retric wrote:
| Most of what we eat _are_ grasses. Rice, wheat, corn, etc.
|
| Grazing cattle on marginal land is extremely labor
| intensive. So most cattle calories come from potential or
| actual farmland. Either as highly productive pasture or
| crops optimized to feed cattle. Especially as grazing
| clause significant damage to marginal land resulting in
| desertification or other issues if not carefully managed.
| rand0mx1 wrote:
| I think 100% would be apt
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| > We eat way too much meat, but strict vegetarianism and
| especially veganism does not scale to the whole population
| of the planet - animals are simply too efficient at
| converting what we can grow everywhere but can't eat (grass
| mostly) to what we can eat. Simply, an exclusively plant
| based diet would require the elimination (by starvation?)
| of who knows, 90% of the world population?
|
| Which is not true at all, most meat is cow beef, pig and
| poultry fed with grains. Grains that we have to grow, and
| take land and water away from growing other things that
| could feed us directly.
|
| This would only be true if everyone ate grass-fed beef -
| which would be premium and 10x more expensive- and a lot
| more goat and similar that can be fed low quality grass.
| seanwilson wrote:
| > animals are simply too efficient at converting what we
| can grow everywhere but can't eat ... Simply, an
| exclusively plant based diet would require the elimination
| (by starvation?) of who knows, 90% of the world population?
|
| "Half of the world's habitable land is used for
| agriculture, with most of this used to raise livestock for
| dairy and meat. Livestock are fed from two sources - lands
| on which the animals graze and land on which feeding crops,
| such as soy and cereals, are grown. How much would our
| agricultural land use decline if the world adopted a plant-
| based diet?
|
| Research suggests that if everyone shifted to a plant-based
| diet we would reduce global land use for agriculture by
| 75%. This large reduction of agricultural land use would be
| possible thanks to a reduction in land used for grazing and
| a smaller need for land to grow crops.
|
| ...
|
| In the charts here we see the energy and protein efficiency
| of different animal products. This tells us what percentage
| of the calories or grams of protein that we feed livestock
| are later available to consume as meat and dairy. As an
| example: beef has an energy efficiency of about 2%. This
| means that for every 100 kilocalories you feed a cow, you
| only get 2 kilocalories of beef back. In general we see
| that cows are the least efficient, followed by lamb, pigs
| then poultry."
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| More likely that we've been disconnected from the realities
| of the food chain; in general people didn't eat horses
| because they're more valuable as work animals vs meat.
|
| Farmers et al who deal with animals day in and day out don't
| seem to have much problem also eating them.
| rapnie wrote:
| > Doesn't this more indicate that many people deep-down know
| that eating animals is wrong
|
| I am severely limiting my meat intake, both from
| environmental as well as animal welfare pov. But what you
| express is an entirely cultural opinion. Humans are by nature
| omnivore animals. They always ate meat. But we do it now on
| industrial scale, eating way too much. There's very few
| hunter-gatherers in their traditional habitat driving a spear
| to the wild animal's neck left.
| seanwilson wrote:
| > I am severely limiting my meat intake, both from
| environmental as well as animal welfare pov. But what you
| express is an entirely cultural opinion.
|
| I think claims about environmental damage and animal
| welfare are objective, not opinion.
|
| > Humans are by nature omnivore animals. They always ate
| meat. But we do it now on industrial scale, eating way too
| much.
|
| This is just naturalistic fallacy. We do lots of things in
| our modern lifestyles the last 100 years we never used to
| and stopped doing things we used to commonly do before
| that. Humans don't require meat to thrive any more plus
| climate change is a new problem we have to adapt to.
| xattt wrote:
| You also get this reaction if you declare having eaten what I
| would call secondary meats (rabbit, duck, lamb).
| jhrmnn wrote:
| Interesting! Is this US-specific?
| gundmc wrote:
| Rabbit, Duck, and Lamb are all pretty common meats to eat
| in the US. Usually in finer dining, but I've never seen
| anyone raise an eyebrow at these. Horse, on the other
| hand...
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Duck tends to be pretty expensive in upscale restaurants,
| but is generally available at a much more reasonable
| price in any good (but not necessarily fancy) Chinese
| restaurant.
| xattt wrote:
| My experience with squeamishness around meats varies
| depending on the crowd. People I know who I would consider
| to be a sample of the Canadian general population tend to
| stick to the meat trinity.
|
| Folks who are from multicultural groups are definitely more
| experimental with other kinds of meats.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Rabbit is readily available in the rural US if you hunt and
| skin it yourself. I could eat forever just on the
| population in my yard. But alas...tularemia is a thing.
| 0n0n0m0uz wrote:
| I actually contracted tularemia while rafting and camping
| along the Colorado river in Utah. The campsites attracted
| alot of critters, especially desert jackrabbits. I got
| bit by a flea or horsefly that was infected from the
| rabbit and about 3 days later I had a 105 fever and
| literally couldn't get out of bed for 3 days. Sickest I
| have ever been in my entire life.
| interestica wrote:
| Also 'rabbit starvation' is a thing...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning
| Moto7451 wrote:
| Rabbit isn't common in US grocery stores but Duck and Lamb
| are, especially around winter holidays.
| bombcar wrote:
| Duck is a bit harder to prepare but is common - the local
| store even has Cornish game hens.
|
| Meat rabbits are still grown in some areas, but it's
| relatively rare to find on a supermarket shelf.
| hvs wrote:
| Not the OP, but I'm in the US and.. it's complicated. I
| would say, in general, meats like lamb and, especially,
| veal have fallen out of favor due to the perceived poor
| conditions and youth of the animals. Rabbit isn't common in
| the US (it's not generally available in stores) but the
| "cuteness" factor plays a role here as well. This has
| changed since the 80's when lamb and veal were more
| popularly consumed. I'm guessing PETA's work has moved the
| needle in this area.
|
| Living in Minnesota, however, wild game is more widely
| consumed so things like duck, geese, pheasant, etc. aren't
| seen as odd or offensive.
|
| Horse is considered taboo for consumption in the US.
|
| I would say, in general, Americans can be turned off a meat
| source if it is perceived to have produced from poor
| conditions or is "cute". This, however, does not apply to
| beef, chicken, or pork. (Though you can squeeze a few more
| bucks out of people by calling something "free range").
| happyopossum wrote:
| Lamb is completely common - you can buy it at Costco for
| crying out loud. Heck, I even had some at a FAANG
| cafeteria the other day.
|
| Lamb's consumption is not unusual in the US, and is
| completely unrelated to the veal issue.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| My SO who lived for a time in the UK refuses to eat lamb
| in the US because "it's terrible." Apparently lamb in the
| UK is the gold standard for quality.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| To go with your SO, meat is generally of a higher quality
| in Europe than the US due to the far more stringent
| regulations regarding production. It's also why Europeans
| tend to be far more relaxed than Americans regarding how
| meat is cooked.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Do you mean the thing about meat thermometers and making
| sure that meat is cooked right throught at the right
| temperature, always? Is that a US thing?
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| My US friends give me grief when I tell them I've eaten
| at McDonalds in Italy. "You went to Italy and ate at
| _McDonalds???_ "
|
| Yes. Yes I have. A few times. Nobody believes me when I
| tell them McDonalds burgers are much better in Europe
| than in the US. Plus they sometimes have an excellent
| espresso bar right there in the restaurant.
| elil17 wrote:
| Lamb in the US is just damn expensive
| m0llusk wrote:
| Interesting. Recently I've been eating a lot of lamb
| because it is some of the cheapest meat I can buy.
| jupp0r wrote:
| I was about to write the same thing when I read your
| comment.
|
| Additionally, duck and geese can be bought at my local
| whole foods and often sell out.
| collegeburner wrote:
| where are you in America? i never got anything like this.
| microtherion wrote:
| My (Swiss) kids enjoy eating chicken. I love eating duck, but
| I have to be VERY discreet about it, lest I want to be looked
| at like I'm a serial killer. Having referred to my food as
| "Donald" on one occasion probably didn't help...
| prawn wrote:
| You can get lion meat in the USA if you want to shock people:
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/03/25/175296454/wh.
| ..
|
| Lamb and duck in particular are very common here in
| Australia. Personally, we seem to eat them more often than
| chicken.
| nwallin wrote:
| The conservation status of lion is threatened. I feel the
| same way about eating lion that I do about southern bluefin
| tuna; it's not sustainable, don't do it.
|
| I'd eat mountain lion or dog, but not lion or grey wolf.
|
| nb: wild carnivores are almost always infected with
| parasites like trichinosis. If you do eat them, cook it
| well done.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| It's quite common to eat rabbit, pidgin, pheasant in the UK,
| and duck and lamb are standard dishes
| rapnie wrote:
| Also NL. I feel that the opinions have shifted last couple of
| decades. Anectdotal maybe, when I was younger eating horse meat
| wasn't something one thought about much. My mother used to go
| into town especially for buying horse steak, because "they are
| way better than cow beef steak". Recently I asked her if she
| still buys it. "Horse meat? No!". She forgot about how we
| always ate it.
| wsc981 wrote:
| When I was young I lived in the province Drenthe. We visited
| our grandparents every weekend. My grandfather would often
| have horse meat for dinner.
|
| At the time I quite enjoyed it. I was young and didn't think
| much of it.
|
| Once I got a bit older my father mentioned once that he
| thought horse meat smelled like pee. At that point I stopped
| eating horse meat. However I am not even sure if there was
| some truth in what my father said at the time ... seems
| unlikely.
| rapnie wrote:
| He likely got you with that joke :D
| bombcar wrote:
| In the US at least there's a perception of it being "lower
| quality/class" meat, so that may also play into it
| (especially in media, etc).
| swayvil wrote:
| Chickens, otoh. They are filth and evil enanimalfied. Let their
| suffering be infinite.
| FactolSarin wrote:
| I would argue horses are different than dogs. Dogs a are bred
| to attach to and love humans. Horses.... tolerate us. They'll
| fall in line if you demonstrate you're the leader, but they
| don't bond like dogs do.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| One can get horse meat in Japan too. (I think they mostly
| import it from France these days.) I had a nice cheval
| carpaccio there once, at the insistence of my Japanese hosts.
| It tasted good, but I have no desire to eat it again.
|
| I don't intend to ever try dog. From what I've heard the meat
| of carnivores tastes unpleasant, but that might be folklore.
| ciguy wrote:
| Dog tastes nothing like chicken it's a much darker meat. I
| had it in China and it wasn't exactly unpleasant but
| definitely what we in the USA would describe as gamey.
| Basically pungent and heavy on flavor. The preparation I had
| was in Sichuan so they added tons of red chilies as well so
| it was very spicy. I wouldn't eat it again, once was enough.
| em-bee wrote:
| the primary problem with dogs is that you don't know where
| they come from. there is no guarantee that dogs are raised
| in a healthy way specifically to be eaten, like sheep or
| chicken, but there is a high risk that the dogs are caught
| on the street, and have been feeding on whatever trash they
| found. and you don't know what kind of diseases they had
| either. basically, i would treat dogs like rats, unless the
| restaurant can certify that their dogs actually came from a
| farm for that purpose.
| ciguy wrote:
| In many areas they actually torture and abuse the dogs
| while butchering them also because they think the
| adrenaline makes the meat less tough. If I knew back then
| what I know now I would probably have declined when it
| was offered.
| myshpa wrote:
| > I've heard the meat of carnivores tastes unpleasant
|
| People eating salmons and other predatory fish would
| disagree. Horse meat is really good, and dogs probably taste
| like chicken anyway ...
|
| But no meat beats well-prepared tofu & seitan ;p
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Agreed. I've only heard the legend in relation to land
| mammal carnivores.
| nathanvanfleet wrote:
| When I lived in Montreal I was surprised to find horse meat in a
| handful of regular supermarkets. It was cheaper than beef and it
| was pretty lean, 20 year-old student me appreciated both of those
| things. I found it pretty gamey and more flavorful than beef.
|
| I did a bit of research and found out that Montreal had some of
| the largest horse slaughterhouses in the world. Apparently there
| are plenty of places in the world like Texas or Saudi Arabia with
| a lot of horses, and laws against slaughtering them for meat.
|
| However if you're breeding a lot of horses you're going to end up
| with non-performing animals or too many horses for the space you
| have. So what can they do? They ship the live (healthy and not
| sick) animals to Montreal. They're slaughtered there and then
| shipped to places where they eat said meat.
|
| Unfortunately they wouldn't let me get a tour, which was probably
| for the better anyway.
| Fargoan wrote:
| Or stop breeding them?
| ornornor wrote:
| Right? Applies to every animal though but people seem more
| uneasy with the idea of killing and eating horses vs other
| equally sentient animals.
| bipson wrote:
| Eating horse meat was very common in central Europe _before_ the
| big wars.
|
| In WWI and WWII even more so, horses were declared essential for
| the war in axis countries, and eating them became illegal.
|
| In Italy horse meat picked right up again after WWII, but in
| Austria and Germany people forgot about the reasons it seems and
| it stayed unacceptable/frowned upon.
|
| You can find (excellent) horse meat products in western Austria,
| but the market is tiny, the reaction you get is typically
| "Eeehwww!".
|
| It is an excellent, very iron rich, lean meat. But since my wife
| loves horses, I haven't eaten any for many years.
| hef19898 wrote:
| My grand mother stopped eating horse meat after WW2, because
| rwally bad horse meat was the only meat she got during the war.
|
| Horse is actually among the stuff I want to try one day, along
| with swan.
| bombcar wrote:
| Check Mongolian barbecues near you (if any) - I've found some
| relatively exotic meats there from time to time.
| riedel wrote:
| In Cologne the classical Sauerbraten ( the most famous meat
| dish in the region) is from horse meat. I live in a house in
| Karlsruhe and the last business on the ground floor was a horse
| butcher. Germany, however, has become the land of mass produced
| meat, which can be done with pigs much easier. Horse meat is an
| expensive niche product.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > the reaction you get is typically "Eeehwww!
|
| i understand when people react that way to eating dog or smth,
| but horses and cows are same family of animald
| xienze wrote:
| I think it has more to do with the assumption that horse meat
| is probably quite tough and not very appetizing.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Humans consume everything from mushrooms to mammals, it's
| arbitrary as to which species in what kind of form are ewww
| and which are not.
|
| Only when it comes to primates and closer that our DNA
| actively tries to stop us. Anything farther are matters of
| beliefs, preferences and safety.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > but horses and cows are same family of animal
|
| How do you mean? They're not, taxonomically.
| jameshart wrote:
| 'Family' doesn't really have a defined meaning in modern
| taxonomy. Horses and cows are part of the same clade,
| 'ungulata' - hooved mammals. It's not a Linnaean taxonomic
| ally 'ranked' clade though, like an 'order' or a 'genus' -
| but those terms aren't really that formally valid, so using
| 'family' informally to mean 'clade with some reasonable
| level of shared characteristics' seems fair.
|
| But to also be fair, if you want to classify horses and
| cows as edible based on their shared common ancestry,
| you're also arguing for eating giraffes, tapirs, rhinos,
| hippos, whales and dolphins.
| nwallin wrote:
| You can just look this stuff up on wikipedia...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_(biology) "Family
| (Latin: familia, plural familiae) is one of the eight
| major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy.
| It is classified between order and genus."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equidae "Equidae (sometimes
| known as the horse family) is the taxonomic family of
| horses and related animals, including the extant horses,
| donkeys, and zebras, and many other species known only
| from fossils."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovidae "The Bovidae
| comprise the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant
| mammals that includes cattle, bison, buffalo, antelopes,
| and goat-antelopes. A member of this family is called a
| bovid."
|
| No, horses and cattle are not in the same family. Nor are
| they in the same clade; cattle are artiofabula,
| (ruminants) horses are mesaxonia. (odd toed ungulates)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artiofabula
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesaxonia
|
| > But to also be fair, if you want to classify horses and
| cows as edible based on their shared common ancestry,
| you're also arguing for eating giraffes, tapirs, rhinos,
| hippos, whales and dolphins.
|
| The argument is about whether horses and cattle are in
| the same family, not that a species' taxonomic
| classification can be an indication that they ought to be
| eaten.
| jameshart wrote:
| My point is that Linnaeus's 'family' is not rigorously
| defined and generally not a very precise term anyway. If
| you're not sure what level of clade a pair of related
| creatures share, referring to them as being 'in the same
| family', informally, is fine.
|
| And Ungulata is a clade. "Ungulates (/'^NGgj@leIts,
| -l@ts/ UNG-gy@-layts, - l@ts) are members of the diverse
| clade Ungulata which primarily consists of large mammals
| with hooves."
|
| As a clade, it includes several clades that are
| historically classified as 'orders' and several that are
| 'families'. It would be inaccurate to say 'horses and
| cows are members of the same Linnaean order'; but
| equally, in Linnaean terms, it would be insufficiently
| precise to say they share the same Linnaean 'grandorder',
| because that's also true of, say, a grizzly bear, or a
| badger.
|
| Basically, if you're going to be taxonomically pedantic,
| I think it's better to be pedantic about the _Actual
| taxonomy_ (i.e. the real common ancestry of an organism)
| than it is to be pedantic about the _metataxonomy_ (i.e.,
| the classification of clades as 'order' or 'family' or
| 'genus')
| bombcar wrote:
| The family of "big and eats grass" I guess.
| baliex wrote:
| I know what you mean, because of those 3 species, dogs are
| the only ones to be commonly kept as pets. But what is it
| that puts horses, dogs, and cows in the same/different
| categories?
| protonbob wrote:
| I would say a dog being a carnivore puts it in a different
| category. The same reason I wouldn't want to eat a wolf or
| a big cat.
| thehappypm wrote:
| This is actually a really good point. Dogs will eat
| really disgusting food, perusing the trash or eating poop
| at times.. I wouldn't eat a raccoon for the same reason.
| Horses and cattle eat grass, they're vegan
| NamTaf wrote:
| The bigger issue is that toxins concentrate in carnivores
| in a way that they do not in herbivores.
| looperhacks wrote:
| German here, horse meat isn't very hard to find. It's not
| commonly sold in stores, but it's everything but unacceptable.
| Archelaos wrote:
| I can confirm that. You can get it from specialised butchers,
| often at weekly markets.
| pronlover723 wrote:
| Horse meat is not unusual in Japan.
|
| https://tabelog.com/rstLst/?vs=1&sa=&sk=%25E9%25A6%25AC%25E8...
| madduci wrote:
| In Italy, at least in South, horse meat is still being consumed
| today.
| klez wrote:
| At least in Venice we still eat, for example, frayed dry
| horse meat ("sfilacci di cavallo"), which is more difficult
| to find in Rome, where I now live.
|
| Last Christmas I bought by mistake a horse sopressa[0]
| thinking it was pork and bought it down to Rome. My in-laws
| were surprised to say the least :)
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopressa
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| as a Roman can confirm.
|
| I don't eat horse meat myself but my girlfriend loves it
| and it's really hard to find it in Rome.
|
| Traditional cuisine here is mostly about ovine meat, lamb
| mostly ("abbacchio")
|
| There's a typical roman food "coppiete" that was
| traditionally made with dried horse meat (similar to beef
| jerky) but nowadays the pork meat version is much more
| popular.
|
| Don't know why exactly.
|
| Strangely enough horse meat is a favorite for many of my
| roman friends, even though it's not easy to get it.
| malermeister wrote:
| We still eat Pferdeleberkase in Vienna, so I have to disagree
| with you there.
| unfunco wrote:
| Eating horse meat in the United Kingdom was seemingly quite
| common in the United Kingdom prior to 2013 but nobody knew
| about it[0], when common products were found to contain horse
| meat and the public reaction turned into a huge story / scandal
| and most people in the UK would have the same ewww reaction.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal
| bipson wrote:
| Oh, that same scandal went through all of Europe.
|
| But the "ewww"-effect came mostly from the mislabeling part.
| null_object wrote:
| In Sweden horsemeat used to be sold commonly in supermarkets
| everywhere as thinly sliced sandwich charcuterie. Interestingly
| it's called "hamburger-meat".
|
| The last 10 or so years I've noticed it's gradually disappeared
| from Stockholm stores.
| tpmx wrote:
| If you have a craving: Many of the various kinds of salamis
| from Kotivara (Finnish) have horse meat in them, including
| the very nice pepperoni one:
|
| https://www.kotivara.se/vara-
| salamis/salamis/pepperonisalami...
| goranerik wrote:
| It's still available in one of the largest supermarket chains
| (willys)
| the-smug-one wrote:
| Restaurant Bergamott has horse filet if you're interested.
| aliswe wrote:
| It is said (we learnt in school) that in sweden, to increase the
| spread of Christianity, the clerics made horsemeat religiously
| prohibited. If true, I think this contributed to why eating horse
| is essentially unthinkable in Sweden...
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Like most farm animals, horses don't normally die of old age and
| are instead either slaughtered or put to sleep by a veterinarian.
| If you think about it, cremating or burying a big animal like
| that is costly. So, a lot of horses end up being processed in a
| meat factory instead. The resulting meat is used for all sorts of
| things all over the world.
|
| Horse slaughter is actually banned in the US. However, a lot of
| horses there are simply exported across the border to Canada or
| Mexico where they are slaughtered anyway. Why pay to have the
| animal disposed off when you can get some money for the meat?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| It's certainly not very green to waste that energy and
| nutrients by just throwing away that much usable meat that took
| a lot of energy and nutrients, c02 to grow.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Horse basashi is popular in a few cities of Japan. Kumamoto is
| especially known for horse dishes.
| jmpman wrote:
| I need to move to France.
| Voeid wrote:
| [deleted]
| jeromenerf wrote:
| People usually eat decommissioned horses, if their papers allowed
| for it. Most are raised by enthusiasts, for sport.
|
| Horses bred and raised for their meat are no longer rare.
|
| What used to be endangered races (cobs, cold bloods), can now be
| maintained thanks to a rather unexpected business opportunity.
|
| French don't eat them though, they are sold to Japan, to be eaten
| very fat, as delicatessen.
| yvdriess wrote:
| Similarly, the Ardennes draft horse genetic stock survived
| because of an (unsuccessful attempt at) an horse-meat breeding
| industry.
|
| It's usually not economical to breed a horse just for meat,
| which in my eyes makes it a relatively ethical form of meat.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If I were single I'd try it. My wife would _not_ be happy if I
| ate horse (she 's an equestrian).
|
| One thing the article didn't mention is whether the horses are
| raised for meat or if they are simply old horses that are no
| longer useful. I'd imagine a young horse would be more tender.
| Also, I wonder if the butchers sell meat from a stallion or if it
| has a different flavor.
| bambax wrote:
| Everyone in my family rides horses and eats horse meat; we
| don't see any problem with that -- at least we didn't. I
| haven't had horse for a long time, but when I was a child we
| had _tartare de cheval_ every Saturday for lunch (and we went
| to ride horses the following day).
|
| In French riding horses is "monter a cheval" but many people
| (who usually don't ride) improperly say "faire du cheval". The
| appropriate answer when someone asks "est-ce que tu fais du
| cheval?" is: "je monte a cheval; ce sont les bouchers qui font
| du cheval". (I ride horses; only butchers "do" horses).
| OJFord wrote:
| Similar quirk that irks me in English is 'horseback riding':
| it's just 'riding' - or 'riding _on_ horseback ', 'horse
| riding' - the whole thing's coming!
|
| 'horseback riding' to me sounds like it's supposed to be a
| humourous phrase along the lines of 'driving a desk' (a sort
| of blue-collar self-deprecation for having moved up from
| driving whatever vehicle) - like you're still in training and
| haven't been given a live horse yet or something.
| bambax wrote:
| > _it 's just 'riding'_
|
| You can ride other things beside horses: bikes,
| motorcycles, scooters...
| OJFord wrote:
| Yes but those things don't get called 'riding'. I didn't
| claim English was logical.
|
| Even if they did, 'a ride' is ambiguous at least over
| horse and bicycle. I didn't claim it was unambiguous
| either.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| You can usually work it out from the context of the
| person you know. If you have friends who invite you out
| ambiguously because they're into both motorcycles and
| horses, lucky you!
| oergiR wrote:
| In English everywhere except the US, it's "horse riding";
| "horseback riding" is US English.
|
| Definitely humorous:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5wSw3IWRJa0
| OJFord wrote:
| I know it originates in the US (where I'm not from,
| perhaps hence it grating) but like so many things it does
| seem to be catching.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Indeed, calling it just "riding" is one of many odd
| horsepeople shibboleths. This is actually my other huge
| nerd topic.
|
| Other ones include that nobody calls them stables, it's
| "the barn," there is a difference between a rider, an
| owner, horsewoman, horseman (horseman is a reverently
| reserved term of respect, and horsewoman is also a term of
| respect, both take a few decades of riding to earn, when a
| horsewoman is a horseman, it's like saying Maestro, it's
| deference). English and Western riding are a level of
| detail equivalent to red and white wine, they sort of
| describe more what you don't do more than what you in fact
| do. A trail ride is called going out for a hack, or going
| hacking, and a horse that is safe on a trail is called a
| good hack. Disciplines are very siloed and the equivalent
| difference would be someone interested in rally car racing
| vs. street racing, where they both like cars, but wouldn't
| have much to talk about other than some technical rivalry.
| It's almost to the level of the difference between SWE and
| devops, you're both "good at computers," but that's about
| all they have in common.
|
| Wrt motorcycles, we also say motorcyclist or biker, not
| rider. Funny that the differences between motorcyclists and
| bikers are alot like that of English and Western riding, as
| they're motivated by different things.
|
| Also, I've eaten a horse steak. I don't crave it, but it's
| neutral. Part of our human stewardship of nature involves
| killing, culling and eating other animals, just as bugs
| will devour my body once I go. The squeamishness around
| eating horse meat seems more like a fear of ones own
| mortality after being confronted with the body of a being
| one empathizes with. It's a free preference and choice, and
| I would only say that fear is expressed by people who would
| judge others for eating the meat, but not by someone who
| just doesn't eat it.
|
| source: rides motorycle to the barn to go on a hack to
| unwind after hacking all day as a desk jockey and using
| hack writer skills to comment on hacker news.
| OJFord wrote:
| I'm not a horseperson, I'd still say 'riding'. Didn't
| know about 'barns' though, not in that context anyway: I
| used to/would like to think I still play ice hockey; some
| call the rinks (or rather the buildings housing them)
| 'barns' too.
| angio wrote:
| They're horses raised for meat. When a horse is registered the
| owner needs to declare if it will be raised for meat
| consumption or not, that has implications about the type of
| medicines that the horse can take.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Long ago I tried horse meat salami in France. It wasn't terrible,
| but I prefer pork, or rather that's what I was/am used to.
| Americans are surprised to hear when I talk about eating rabbit
| (again in France when I was a kid.) Those cute furry animals are
| delicious :)
| moron4hire wrote:
| Rabbit is eaten in the states, but it's kind of like venison:
| it's just not something you'll usually find in any store or
| restaurant, unless those places are specifically going out of
| their way to cater to either hunters or an "old world European"
| aesthetic. I can regularly get rabbit at either cheap redneck
| holes in the sticks or expensive German restaurants in the
| city.
|
| People outside of the cities, and ethnic enclaves within
| cities, eat a lot of different types of meat. I've had goat,
| bear, possum, and even alligator. I've known people to eat
| squirrel, but I personally never considered it worth the
| effort.
|
| There are also lots of different parts of the animal that
| you'll only find regionally. Various organ meats. Cow and pig
| intestines. Pigs feet. Pig snout. Pig cheek flesh. Bull
| testicles (called "Rocky Mountain Oysters" where I was from,
| though we were nowhere near the Rocky Mountains). Sections of
| beef brain (excellent battered and deep fried).
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| > Sections of beef brain (excellent battered and deep fried).
|
| I'll take your word for it but I'm not tempted. After BSE and
| the outbreak of variant CJD which resulted, I wouldn't
| consider it worth the risk. I've wondered what brain tastes
| like, though. It's used in a few of Apicius's recipes. I
| substituted corned beef from BSE free Argentina when I cooked
| those.
| abawany wrote:
| I was forced to try it a few times as a kid and I can
| assure you it was disgusting, with a soft spongy texture
| and an unnatural taste that no amount of spices could hide.
| wincy wrote:
| There's a Japanese restaurant near my house that serves cow
| tongue, which I've found very interesting and order a la cart
| when I eat there.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Goat is delicious and readily available in US states with a
| large Latinx population. Cabrito tacos are a delicacy.
| wincy wrote:
| Whole Halal goats and lamb are also sold in the frozen
| section at any Costco that has a large Muslim population
| around. Granted you then have to figure out how to cook the
| entire goat. I'm guessing they probably skewer it and roast
| it outdoors for parties?
| nanis wrote:
| Horses are companion animals.
| _ZeD_ wrote:
| they are also very good stewed
| stinos wrote:
| So are my kune-kune pigs. A lot cuter, cuddlier and friendlier
| than the average horse as well. Doesn't make them less edible,
| though given their age the meat likely won't be all that.
| jimmytidey wrote:
| Fantastic title
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| When I was a kid at school (France, late 70's), eating horse meat
| was something heard of. Not the kind of may you could eat
| everyday but you would see some at the butcher's (au least in the
| western suburbs of Paris). I never had some at the school canteen
| (I think).
|
| Fast forward 40 years, same city. There is no horse meat
| anywhere. Eating some is unheard of. I just asked my teenage
| children: they never heard of it (and we're surprised that it was
| something you eat).
|
| Of course this is just one data point, but I guess this is the
| general state today for middle class people in that region.
| jjgreen wrote:
| There's still a _boucherie chevaline_ on Rue Daguerre I believe
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| diets have become much less varied: back home people eat
| chicken hearts and stomacks, they are mostly muscle and
| actually taste nice. All i see for sale in UK is liver which
| tastes very different to 'normal' meat, not a fan
|
| Also it's now difficult to find rabbit and goose - they used to
| be normal, if not everyday, food
| MrDresden wrote:
| Every slaughter season (late september-october) the stores
| are flooded with buckets of blood, hearts, liver and other
| offal.
|
| Usually fill my freezer with the stuff and it lasts me a
| fairly long time.
| Glawen wrote:
| Depends on the region. You can buy here in every shop rosbif
| Alsacien which is horse meat.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Yes, this is very true - that's why I mentioned my region
| expecting that lov=cal traditions may be diverse.
|
| Out of curiosity - is _rosbif Alsacien_ something that you
| would usually buy?(putting aside the price - I am just
| looking for statistical preferences in taste and provenance)
| Glawen wrote:
| From time to time, like once or twice a year. It is sold
| already made. But I'm not a big meat eater, I rarely buy a
| piece of meat to fry.
| tartoran wrote:
| My partner being vegetarian I inadvertently reduced my
| consumption of meat to only rare ocassions for plenty of other
| options and I am doing fairly well. I have nothing against meats
| or meat eaters as I was one myself, but I have the realization
| that meat eating was excessive with meat or other meat products
| eaten on a daily basis, I really think that is not very healthy.
| omega3 wrote:
| Couple of years ago I've tried a horse steak. I wasn't sure what
| to expect but it tasted just like game or a lean beef steak. I
| doubt that most people would be able to tell the difference. It
| was also more expensive and harder to get than beef.
| sbf501 wrote:
| I find elk and deer venison to be indistinguishable, and
| uninteresting. If I was starving I'd eat it, but my palette
| prefers fatty cow.
| khazhoux wrote:
| In Chile there's _charqui_ , dried salted horsemeat. It's very
| flaky, and the mouth-feel of ripping chunks of the super-salty
| dry meat is very satisfying. It's quite different than american
| beef jerky, which is tougher, much darker and "juicier", and
| often has flavor added. The enjoyment of Chilean charqui is
| similar to anchovies: if you haven't acquired the delicious taste
| (it smells a bit like fish-food flakes), you will find it
| repulsive.
|
| https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q564722#/media/File:Charqui.jp...
|
| https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0287/1256/6887/products/Ch...
|
| https://http2.mlstatic.com/D_NQ_NP_2X_757969-MLC42816606727_...
| kurupt213 wrote:
| Seems like a waste not to use horsemeat. They are kept as
| livestock
| tnolet wrote:
| I'm in the Netherlands and there is a horse butcher
| (paardenslagerij) around the corner of my house. Has been there
| since the seventies.
|
| The sausage is quite good, but much fatter than I'd expected.
| It's also quite expensive which can make sense because scarcity,
| but not make sense since the demand must be fairly low.
|
| Based on total anecdata, I see mostly pensioners going here. And
| me.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > It's also quite expensive which can make sense because
| scarcity, but not make sense since the demand must be fairly
| low.
|
| If demand is highly inelastic - as would be expected for
| something like culinary preferences - then price actually has
| to increase when demand is low: if you can sell to 3 people at
| 20$ or 5 people at 10$, you're losing money by decreasing your
| price.
| nanis wrote:
| > If demand is highly inelastic - as would be expected for
| something like culinary preferences
|
| Demand curves, regardless of elasticity, are always downward
| sloping: Higher prices lead to fewer units demanded.
|
| Your statement implies control over prices: Firms with market
| power do not operate along the inelastic portion of a demand
| curve. This is a logical implication of profit maximization.
|
| Before one can understand that, one must internalize the fact
| that as a seller, you cannot choose the price and the
| quantity sold independently. If you pick a price, you can
| sell the quantity demanded at that price. If it is too high,
| can't sell any. If you pick quantity, you can only sell all
| at a price people are willing to pay.
|
| Assume a firm has market power (can pick price) and is
| operating along the inelastic portion of the demand curve.
|
| If it charges a higher price, it loses some sales, but total
| revenue increases (that's what demand being inelastic means
| -- quantity sold falls, but percentagewise not as much as you
| increased the price, therefore, revenue, price x quantity
| increases). In addition, because cost is increasing in
| quantity (offering more for sale costs you more) and now you
| are producing less, costs go down. Therefore, profit, which
| is revenue minus cost, must increase. Therefore, if you were
| operating along the inelastic portion of the demand curve,
| you could not have been maximizing profits.
|
| Therefore, firms with market power (can pick price) can only
| operate along the elastic portion of the demand curve.
|
| If you are claiming demand for horse meat is a vertical
| straight line (which is not a thing outside of being a
| limiting case in econ 101), then lower demand means demand
| curves closer to x axis origin, i.e., price is determined
| simply by the supply curve. With a given supply curve (which
| are always positively sloped due to the fact that cost is
| increasing in output), lower demand means lower equilibrium
| price,
|
| > then price actually has to increase when demand is low.
|
| Demand falling cannot cause higher prices (keeping everything
| else constant).
| wjnc wrote:
| Those sweet economists. (I've got my MSc in Economics ;)
| First off: Giffen and Veblen goods? Second off: while I'm
| all for the theoretical models and would even defend that
| institutional evolution would lead to markets representing
| theoretical IO markets ... a local horse butcher in a Dutch
| town is not a profit maximizing entity. He's got sticky and
| human relations on his supply side, sticky and human
| relations on his demand side and a finite time horizon in
| which the butcher takes pride in the job and firm. Ever
| hear seniors complain about prices rising in small stores?
| Store owners take that into account. Marginal local stores
| bordering on bankruptcy tell you that. He picks prices
| because all things considering that price makes sense to
| him.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Demand for things like horse meat is limited. Even if a
| butcher gave it out for free, they wouldn't be able to
| "sell" as much horse meat as chicken meat, at least not for
| human consumption.
|
| So, when you realize you're already selling the maximum
| possible amount of your good, you're only option to
| increase profit is to increase your prices.
|
| If your market reduces even further (say, 10% of the people
| buying your horse meat die of old age), you will often have
| to increase price even more to try to keep the profit you
| were making. Especially with goods like meat, where the
| supply side is also inelastic (you can't produce half a
| horse, you butcher a whole horse or you don't butcher it at
| all).
|
| For niche culinary products, this type of extremely limited
| market can actually exist. I'd bet if you were allowed to
| sell mouse meat, you would quickly get to know every single
| person in London who wants to eat mouse meat.
|
| Of course, I'm not claiming that demand will not be reduced
| by price. You can't charge a million dollars per kilo of
| horse meat. But you also can't expect to increase sales
| volume for certain niche goods past a point, regardless of
| price.
|
| Edit: this is also often visible in the price of seasonal
| specialties. For example, in my country, lamb is only
| commonly eaten for Easter. So, demand for lamb spikes
| around Easter every year. But, lamb prices actually _drop_
| around Easter (at least for consumers) - the rest of the
| year, lamb is only sold at high prices for the few people
| who consider it a delicacy. But around Easter, as demand
| increases for cultural reasons, competing on price starts
| making sense and price drops just as demand rises.
| aspyct wrote:
| It's the first time I see a picture of edible meat and feel
| repulsed by it.
|
| Interesting.
|
| Bit of background about me: I really like horses. They're friends
| to me. I see why people eat them, but that just sounds wrong,
| just writing it.
|
| I... I guess I understand why vegetarians don't like meat, now.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| I'm not here to judge anyone for eating meat, despite being
| vegetarian, but I agree with the other comments here, if you
| eat cows or pigs or sheep or chickens then why not cockatoos or
| horses or dogs (or feral cats, which are consumed in some parts
| of Australia)?
|
| I don't eat any of these creatures, but nevertheless, I just
| don't get why certain animals seem to be culturally off limits
| for those who do eat meat. Is it just because cows, pigs and
| sheep are not animals you get to pat very often?
| aspyct wrote:
| Yeah, I think that's why.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| I think it's because some animals are raised for their meat,
| and some not, and they're different animals in different
| parts of the world. Similarly, some animals are hunted or
| foraged for food and others aren't.
|
| I think that kind of ...crystallises? into eating taboos. So
| for example, where I'm from, in Greece, it's traditional
| (particularly in the islands of Crete and Corfu) for people
| to go out and gather snails after the rain to cook them and
| eat them. Famously, the French also eat snails. But offer
| snails to an Englishman? Yeeeew! Snails!
|
| And let's not forget that entire millions of people don't eat
| specific kinds of meat because it's forbidden by their
| religions: faithful jewish and muslim folks don't eat pig
| meat, Hindus don't eat cow meat (unless the cow must be put
| down because it broke a leg, if I understand correctly) and
| so on.
|
| And then there's matters of personal preference. In Greece,
| organ meats are considered a delicacy, but I have at least
| two friends who will not touch them and will probably puke if
| they smell them cooking.
| aspyct wrote:
| Not the case for me at least. In Belgium we can still find
| horsemeat, I think, though it's hard.
|
| In fact, one of our national draft breeds, the "Ardennais",
| has been saved because we were eating them after WWII.
|
| No, it's really me absolutely unable to eat friends.
| sbf501 wrote:
| When I was a kid we'd walk down to the shore during low
| tide and throw big rocks on the beach below the tide line.
| When water squirted up out of the sand, we'd dig there to
| find a type of small clam that sprays water. Then we'd
| literally steam and eat them. You are supposed to soak them
| in water to let them filter out the sand for a day, but
| generally we just dealt with a little grit for the
| immediate satisfaction.
| dundarious wrote:
| I used to eat meat (I don't anymore but the reasons are
| irrelevant), and have eaten dog (once) and a bunch of other
| "atypical for the US" animals (usually just once or twice).
| But even then, when I was thinking that most of the cultural
| limits around eating particular animals were arbitrary, I
| still worried that I wasn't just eating _some dog_ , maybe I
| was eating _someone's dog_. In practice, the probability was
| extremely low (and it was still _possible_ even for cows,
| though even less likely) but the seeming category overlap in
| the case of dogs added psychological friction.
| sbf501 wrote:
| We only eat the ugly animals. Obligatory Denis LEary:
|
| "And what are you? ... I'm an otter ... And what do you do?
| ... I swim around and do cute little human things with my
| hands. ... You're free to go. And what are you? ... I'm a
| cow. ... No you're not! You're a baseball mitt! Get in the
| back of the truck!!!"
| bombcar wrote:
| I mean cows are made of _meat_ and horses are made of ....
| bone I guess?
|
| It's mainly perceptual. I don't begrudge people wanting to
| eat random animals, but I'm not going to go out of my way to
| get or try it.
| stevenhuang wrote:
| I imagine it can feel strange to eat what you form an
| emotional bond with.
| aspyct wrote:
| Yup, pretty much, yeah...
| MrDresden wrote:
| Icelander here. Horse foal meat is some of the more expensive
| meat you can have at the finer restaurants in the country. At
| every butcher shops you can find foal meat, and most if not all
| supermarkets carry horse meat in some way (frozen, salted, smoked
| or as a sausage etc).
|
| The finer foal cuts are really some of the best meat I have ever
| tasted. Highly recommend.
| dagurp wrote:
| It's pretty cheap if you buy it in stores
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| -- most intense lamb I've ever tried was in Iceland - had lamb
| many many times in Scotland and it was gamey - but the lamb in
| Iceland was next level - in fact it was so intense that I tried
| it at another restaurant the next day just to see if it was the
| place I'd eaten - nope - just as strong - I wondered why - if
| you happened to know --
| MayeulC wrote:
| Male mutton tends to have a stronger taste, especially when
| older, where it can get too strong. It might depend on the
| age at which the lamb was slaughtered, as there is more meat
| as they grow older. (My parents raise a few sheep).
| meheleventyone wrote:
| All the sheep in Iceland are let out in the spring and spend
| their entire time living wild before being rounded up in
| autumn (which is a really big event). So they spend a lot
| more time eating quality food and mountain herbs. Makes all
| the difference. Lamb here really is amazing.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| The perfect main course after the whale appetizer!
| MrDresden wrote:
| While grazing animals can be slaughtered in a much quicker
| and "humane" fashion, whaling is a gruesome practice that can
| take a long time.
|
| I am absolutely against whaling.
| sph wrote:
| We eat horsemeat in Italy as well, though not very commonly. I
| did a few times, eh, nothing to write home about. Also donkey
| meat ragu once, that was pretty good.
|
| AFAIK rabbit meat is not viewed very well across the pond either,
| like in the US. Correct me if I'm wrong.
| t-3 wrote:
| Rabbit isn't tabboo like horse or dog, but it's not common due
| to fear of disease from eating out of season (there is a myth
| that eating rabbit in certain seasons is dangerous).
| hgazx wrote:
| Rabbit is popular in paella.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| I don't know about across the pond, but there's definitely a
| taboo about it in the UK. I had a discussion about it with a
| gentleman who cooks for a pub and he was going out of his way
| to say that it's perfectly fine to eat rabbit and there's
| nothing wrong with it. We were seated at a Spanish restaurant
| in a town in the South of England, with a plate of kidneys, I
| believe, in front of us, and the conversation turned to meats
| that the British dont' commonly eat.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > rabbit meat is not viewed very well across the pond either,
| like in the US
|
| It's not very common but I'm not shocked if I hear someone say
| they ate it, as I would be hearing someone ate horse.
|
| Rabbit will occasionally be sold at normal grocers but
| generally in short supply. I remember it being more common when
| I was a kid and I associate it with older people.
|
| Same with lamb, which is also increasingly rare stateside. I
| remember my mom's delicacy was lamb chops.
|
| Goat is usually readily available where Caribbean or Indian
| populations are high. My local grocer usually has goat.
| bombcar wrote:
| Rabbits fed the same kind of market that chickens do, but
| chickens have been engineered to produce absolutely massive
| amounts of meat for cheap, and rabbits haven't kept up.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Probably a good reason to eat rabbit rather than chicken...
| Avlin67 wrote:
| we have lot of kebabs and << chicken whatever >> fats
| foods in france because of utterly cheap so called meat
| comming from egg industry (usually poland or germany)I
| had to learn my wife what proper meet is about and get a
| discussion with the butcher. Now she gets high quality at
| cheap price...
| RajuVarghese wrote:
| It is quite common here in Switzerland. Cafeterias serve it as
| well as regular restaurants but, admittedly, it is not as common
| as beef, pork, chicken or lamb. Surprisingly, it is illegal in
| Texas and other parts of the US though it may not be enforced.
| Texas even bans transportation of horse meat through the state.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > Surprisingly, it is illegal in Texas
|
| Why is it suprising? Horses are an integral part of history and
| culture of Texas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy
| myko wrote:
| So are longhorns :)
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| It's an integral part of my country's history (much more so
| than that of Texas IMHO). Same in our neighbor Mongolia.
| Horse meat isn't illegal here, and never was. I ate it a
| couple of times and nobody raised an eyebrow.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Horses are integral to the history and culture of Iceland to
| the point of having an exclusive breed of horses with their
| own unique gait yet you can still eat horse here.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| That's indeed _surprising_ , in a similar vein as if we
| made eating dogs a normal thing. Some cultures have
| (China).
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Only from a different cultural context, there isn't an
| objective idea about what's correct here. The idea that
| horses should be privileged because they are historically
| important is itself interesting. Particularly in terms of
| how historically they were widely eaten. I also think
| there is a bit of retconning going on where our views of
| the animals now are assumed of our ancestors. For example
| I'm British and horses are generally not eaten but this
| it'd be ahistorical for me to claim that this was true
| even in the relatively recent past.
|
| Also the idea that cowboys are uniquely horse based when
| vast swathes of the world was also using horses
| ubiquitously at the same time!
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| Horses used to me much integral to American and European
| culture and history and they used to be eaten much more.
| acer4666 wrote:
| Should it be illegal to eat peaches in Atlanta?
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Are peaches used for anything else other than eating? The
| culture is based on eating peaches and they grow by the
| millions. It would be surprising if they made eating
| peaches illegal.
|
| I suspect it is contemptous to eat an horse in Texas
| precisely because it provides a livelihood and killing one
| to eat is probably not a wise idea. Culturally, it is
| entirely understandable just like cows in India: https://en
| .wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_in_religion_and_mytholo...
|
| I am not here to argue whether it is ok to eat a horse or
| not. I am debating about whether it is surprising or not.
| It is not surprising at all IMO.
| 1shooner wrote:
| >Surprisingly, it is illegal in Texas and other parts of the US
| though it may not be enforced.
|
| This is second-hand, but I was told by a horse trainer in
| Kentucky that one reason is pharmaceutical: the drugs used on
| most horses in the US as a matter of course make them
| problematic for eating.
| xdennis wrote:
| > Texas even bans transportation of horse meat through the
| state.
|
| Horse meat is banned in the whole US in the most American way
| possible: by the roundabout way of the government not providing
| horse meat inspectors.
|
| Technically, you can eat meat in some places if you prepare it
| yourself, but since there are no inspectors there would be no
| way to sell it.
|
| In the same way, it's not federally illegal to drink before 21,
| but congress will cut highway funds to any state which allows
| 20 year olds to drink.
|
| BTW, I read in a book about The Godfather that Coppola remarked
| how ridiculous it is that people were upset that he used a real
| horse head and blood in the movie, but not with the fact that
| it came from a slaughterhouse which would have used it to make
| dog food.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Yum. Horse is in every Swiss supermarket. At least in the French
| part.
| aix1 wrote:
| Very common in Zurich also.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| > A bit like goat curry, all you really taste is the spices.
|
| Agree that cheval, flavor-wise, isn't remarkable; it's good, it's
| a baseline. But goat? If you think all you experience is the
| seasoning, your sense of taste might be diminished.
| the-smug-one wrote:
| I suspect that it depends on the age of the goat and the amount
| of fat (if goat is similar to mutton). Older and more fat =>
| more 'distinguished' taste.
| smackay wrote:
| For a species that has given so much and has been pivotal in the
| development of humanity, it's time we repaid the debt and granted
| them freedom in perpetuity.
| 9dev wrote:
| So now horses have outlived their usefulness, they can be
| generously granted freedom? What's it take until we stop
| enslaving and torturing the other species that have given so
| much to us..?
| gilrain wrote:
| Why just horses?
| gerikson wrote:
| Horse meat is not unknown in Sweden but it's uncommon.
|
| I remember being surprised during the horsemeat lasagne scandal
| that horse is a taboo food in the UK and Ireland.
| xdennis wrote:
| To remind people in case they didn't know (because there was a
| huge backlash against Romanians at the time and newspapers
| never correct themselves after investigations) the meat was
| labeled as "horse meat" when it left Romania. It was a Dutch
| company which relabeled it as "beef".
| Ekaros wrote:
| Same in Finland.
|
| Occasionally can be seen, but it is no way stable outside
| certain sausages.
|
| I think it comes mostly to that they aren't really farmed and
| if they are given certain medicines they can't be used as food
| anymore.
| pierot wrote:
| We ate horse steak in the 80-90's at Home, in Belgium. Almost
| every butcher still sells it nowadays. "100gr van 't perdje" (100
| gram of horse ham)
| lokedhs wrote:
| About the names of these products, horse meat is traditionally
| called "hamburgerkott" in Swedish. It literally translates to
| "hamburger meat" (related to the city of Hamburg, and not the
| dish hamburger).
| kosolam wrote:
| Don't read it, complete waste of time.
| mcv wrote:
| That horse meat "scandal" also hit Netherland, which surprised
| me. Well, selling horse meat as beef is obviously misleading, but
| a lot of people seemed to be upset about the very notion of
| eating horse meat, which is the part that surprised me. I still
| remember that when I was a kid, my parents would often buy smoked
| horse meat. It seems to be less common these days. I guess some
| people aren't familiar with it and therefore see it as weird or
| unnatural?
|
| Then again, my wife is horrified by the idea of rabbit meat.
| k__ wrote:
| Don't get this either.
|
| We have a horse butcher here in the city whoms unique selling
| point is just that, selling horse meat.
|
| Nobody cares, really.
| aliraheem wrote:
| > I guess some people aren't familiar with it and therefore see
| it as weird or unnatural?
|
| I think this is part of it, but there seems to be an amplifying
| effect where the social context - people being upset about
| mislabelled food leads to people feeling stronger about their
| otherwise small objection.
|
| It's almost like because of the social pressure people know
| they are angry but not too sure why, and they end up ascribing
| all that angry to whatever reason they can think of.
|
| Had they been introduced to the idea of eating horse meat at a
| jovial bistro in the Swiss countryside they would be primed to
| enjoy it.
| rob_c wrote:
| There's more than just horse out there too:
| https://www.exoticmeatco.co.uk/
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