Now as I scratch my head the puzzle gets all SUDOKU on me when I think about all the horse consumed by our European brethern. From the French who we usually so closely watch what's on their plate (up to 4lbs annually per french person and one in 3 consume it regularly) Belgium, Italy, Germany, Russia and the Dutch to name a few. This is more lamb ,Veal or Mutton us Americans eat annually....In Japan it is becoming a very popular Sukiyaki dish rising to 3% of Japans meat consumed is Nelly the Horse.
Ohhh I know they are so smart and we would NEVER eat an intelligent beast...I put my bet on a Pigs intellect over a horse any day.
This equine beast has had his highs and lows in the worlds culinary history....let's dip into this trough and see what we find.......
Way back when Grandpa was a teen during the Stone Age, hunters gorged themselves north and south of the equator on Wild Horses. The Asiatic pastorialists who first domesticated this beast enjoyed its bounty as did the PRE Christian folks of N Europe;NOM NOM NOM. Then during the rise of the Middle Eastern Empire the taboo began... Romans refused to indulge and during early medieval times the horse was receiving the European Sacred Cow status. Some crazy papal decree kept starving Midievalans from having this rich protein . Then a few years pass(yes Pat my PHd of history everyone know more than a few years) French Revolution brought the Equine treat back to the Euro plate. By the 19th century is was WHATS FOR DINNER all across Europe minus Britain.( They said blech) By WW1 13 thousand tons eaten then by WW2 the trend reversed again. Why the green light red light acceptability of this protein source is so interesting. AND why did the Brits and americans avoid it all together?
I could blather on and on about the Mongol warriors feasting on the blood and flesh while washing it down with fermented horse milk, or about ......crap my Sciatica is donkey punching me in my back I gotta stop ......I'm not done with this so bare with me while I go lay on my back legs in air and a opium drip...
2 comments:
Interesting post. What brought this to mind?
Same reason we don't eat dogs or songbirds I guess.
It's a special bond formed with a horse when you work together day in and day out. Pigs don't get jobs like that very often.
Oh, and the fact that you can't slaughter horses in the US - it's a long cruel trip to Canada and Mexico.
Thanks to that, plenty of discarded horses live lives worse than any death. And don't get me started on the hormone therapies made from mare's urine! CRUEL, but we don't hear much about that....
Probably, because originally they were too valuable for work and breeding. There wasn't an excess in the olden days. And the Brits don't eat horse and most of our early culture was based on British culture.
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