Horses as food

Horses are rarely bred by humans for use as food, but instead the meat of old, injured or discarded animals is used in many places. Meat from (injured) horses that vets have put down with a lethal injection is not used for consumption: the carcasses of such animals are cremated. In 2001, people consumed an estimated 153,000 tonnes of horse meat worldwide. In France specialized butcher shops (boucheries chevalines) sell horsemeat, as ordinary butcher shops do not have the right to deal in it. The eating of horse meat is a food taboo and abhorrent to some people in some parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom and the US, and sometimes even illegal. In other parts of the world, horse meat has the stigma of being something poor people eat and is seen as a cheap substitute for other meats.

In the late palaeolithic (Magdalenien) wild horses formed an important source of food.

Horse meat is often of very good quality. It is tender, low in fat and high in protein, something that has led to its being popular among body builders. Horse meat has a slightly sweet taste that some find distasteful, but that can be disguised with seasoning and spices.

Horse was commonly eaten in many countries in pre-Christian Europe, but not in Islamic or Jewish countries, since under Mosaic Law, horse meat is unclean because the horse is not cloven-hoofed or cud-chewing. In pre-Christian times, horse meat was eaten in northern Europe as part of Teutonic religious ceremonies, particularly those associated with the worship of Odin.

In 732 A.D., Pope Gregory III began an effort to stop the pagan practice of horse eating, calling it "abominable", and the people of Iceland allegedly expressed reluctance to embrace Christianity for some time largely over the issue of giving up horse meat. In some countries the effects of this prohibition by the Catholic Church have lingered, and horse meat prejudices have progressed from taboos to avoidance to abhorrence.

The French appetite for horse meat supposedly dates from the Battle of Eylau in 1807, when the surgeon-in-chief of Napoleon's Grand Army, Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey, advised the starving troops to eat the flesh of dead battlefield horses. The cavalry used breastplates as cooking pans and gunpowder as seasoning, and thus founded a tradition. Today many European countries, including Italy, Romania and Belgium, produce and consume horse meat.

During World War II, due to the low supply and high price of beef, the state of New Jersey legalized the sale of horse meat. At war's end, the state again prohibited such sale—some say in response to pressure from the beef lobby.

According to the anthropologist Marvin Harris, humans class horsemeat as taboo because the horse converts grass into meat less efficiently than other beasts, since horses do not function as ruminants. When breeding cattle for meat, a cow or a sheep will produce more meat if fed with the same amount of grass.

Although people in the United States of America rarely eat horse meat, many horses from the US are sold for slaughter and consumption in Europe, Mexico or Japan. A Food Standards Agency (FSA) 2003 investigation has revealed that salami and chorizo on sale in the UK sometimes contains horse and donkey meat, without being mentioned on the food label—something that is required.

Much of the horse produced in the US is sold to zoos for carnivore feeding.

Brigitte Bardot has spent her latter years crusading against the eating of horse meat.

Mare milk is used by peoples with large horse herds, like Mongols. They may let it ferment to produce kumys. However, mares produce a much lower yield of milk than do cows.

Use

Those preparing sandwiches with horse meat usually use it smoked and salted. Horse meat forms an ingredient in several traditional recipes of salami, and in Kazakhstan it's used in hazy (horse sausage).

Japanese call raw horse meat sakura from its pink color. It is often served as sashimi where it is called basashi and serve it in thin slices.

In Switzerland horse meat may be used in Fondue bourguignonne. In Belgium, the traditional french fries were cooked in horse fat, although since the replacement of horses with automobiles, other types of fat, considered inferior by many, are often used instead.

In Italy it is used in recipes such as Pezzetti di cavallo. In Chile it is used in charqui.

External links

fi:Hevosenliha

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