Friday 8 February 2013

Hungry? I could eat a horse.


Over here in Glorious Albion, we have taken to eating horse-meat in huge quantities, usually in the form of burgers (25%) or lasagna (100%), and - joy - it costs a fraction of the price that is charged in a good French restaurant for a Filet de Cheval.

I have never understood the process by which a pony you may buy for your spoilt daughter will cost a few thousand pounds if she is to ride it around a paddock, or only a few pounds if she is to feed it to the family Labrador. It seems to be a seller's market, and now the Eastern European (allegedly) sellers have found a way of adding value to their products by mis-labelling it as beef.

Of course, the meat is just as good as any other scrag-end of factory-farmed beef - perhaps better - and the only known health risk (so far) is the slim chance of ingesting some of the drugs which may have been administered to the animal when it was earning it's keep by working, in order to keep it working.

It is only us Brits who seem to put an old horse out to grass for the remainder of it's unproductive days, as we usually fall in love with all animals in our care, no matter how unresponsive or aggressive they are in life. If the old Labrador starts biting the children for no reason in it's dotage, most middle-class families have to think hard when deciding between putting the dog or the children down with a lethal injection, and only decide on the former option for legal reasons.

When my father was a child in the East End of London, he remembers stalls in the street which sold nothing but cooked horse-meat on skewers, for about a penny a stick. I would rather eat one of those than the kebabs which are moulded around a former and called 'pensioner's legs' by drunks in the North. As the old joke goes, I don't mind eating a doner kebab, just so long as I know who the donor is.

In this case, it's the principle of the thing, whether or not you eat meat. I am not talking about the moral dilemmas of vegetarians or hypocritical animal lovers, but the fact that nobody likes to be hoodwinked into buying something under  false pretences, even if it is superior to what it is actually called on the packet.

Having said that, this is a massive victory for vegans and vegetarians, but it is also a massive victory for  small butchers, small farmers, expensive supermarkets and anyone else who can prove the origin of their products by naming the farm and - in some cases - quoting the exact date when the animal was slaughtered.

Also, this is yet another good reason never to buy cheap meat from unscrupulous sources, if you buy meat at all. I for one would not want to eat a chicken which can be bought  - ready roasted - from a supermarket for about £4. I would rather make Waitrose richer than they are already.


19 comments:

  1. I don't mind eating a bit of horse but, I guess the point is that we weren't told and were deceived.
    ... and then there were the Jewish prisoners who had traces of pork in their meals..... I think that there might be a few lawsuits being filed over that one. XXXX

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    1. Weren't they Muslim prisoners? (if that makes any difference)

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    2. Yes, you are right Tom ....... I was getting my Halal mixed up with my Kosher, although I thought that I heard on the news that the meat that was found to have traces of pork DNA was a concern to both the Jewish and Muslim inmates...... anyway, pass me a horse burger and the tomato ketchup !! XXXX

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  2. I was on a plane once (when you used to get a hot dinner) and watched a man scoff down a meat dinner of some kind, discovering part way through it was something he was not allowed to eat. He made a big fuss and was given another kind of meal. He promptly forgot his disgust and scoffed down the second one quite happily.

    I am not sure what the source of horse meat is. Are they old discarded horses, or bred for meat? How can there be enough old horses to supply the market. I have read that horses are much more aware of the "situation" when going to slaughter than other animals, making it far worse than a cow or pig.

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    1. Re the last paragraph - Except that most horses are far more used to transportation than most other animals. Transportation - in one form or another - is their life. As to the rest, I don't know.

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  3. The ONLY THING I CAN'T EAT are donuts

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    1. I don't believe that. Wrap a horse-meat Scotch Egg around a doughnut, and it would be gone in seconds.

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    2. Hummmm savoury and sweet all in one bite

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  4. It is a trust issue, yes? We would like to think that we are being told the truth about what we are eating. Being so divorced from our food sources means that we have to trust in good will and consumer laws. Shit. How scary is THAT scenario at the roadhouse?

    Sorry to go all hippy on you but that is what is so great about farmers markets ... buying food from its source. And get friendly with a fisherwoman. heh heh.

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    1. Sometimes I smell like I have got friendly with a fisherwoman, but that's it.

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  5. I just can't help but see the funny side of all this ... Lord knows how long this has been going on -- which doesn't make whatever department in the government is supposed to be looking at these things like they have been doing much of a job for however many years it is. For all we know we've all been brought up on the stuff. At the end of it all the lawyers are gonna be makin the money -- again!!! Some lady has been on the news today demanding criminal investigations! Good God -- we've been lied to... (It's those Irish, and the Lithuanians, and no doubt Romanians and Bulgarians, too!)

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    1. Me and my friends also laughed at the news of the 100% Findus horse-Lasagna too. You are not alone.

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  6. If for anyone, I feel sorry for Findus. They have been fraudulently sold Dobbin instead of Daisy. It's those bloody French again!

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    1. Why can't Findus stick to what they know - Dolphin?

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    2. All wildlife should be preserved. Pickle that dolphin today.

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  7. I remember a horse meat shop in Lincolnduring the war - all I can remember is seeing these great joints in the window and them all having very yellow fat. I have eaten mare without knowing what it was in Central Asia once, and it tasted much like beef and was quite deliciou. But I do agree about buying meat of any kind from supermarkets - I would sooner eater less and buy it from my reputable butcher.

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    1. Best to shoot your own horse, in my experience.

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