Eating horsemeat in France

The family of "big and eats grass" I guess.

‘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.

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.

> Only when it comes to primates and closer that our DNA actively tries to stop us

Interesting. Do you have evidence for this?

There are many more ewww type meats that we culturally accept, like crustaceans. I mean, they're sea insects basically. I enjoy a good prawn yet I'm repulsed by the idea of eating a scorpion. I am aware it's just a cultural artifact and not DNA driven disgust.

On the other hand herbivores and ruminants are the type of meat humans find the most delicious, and horse is one of them. Carnivores or omnivores I seem to understand they don't taste as good, and here's my justification for never considering cats, dogs, bears, etc., as possible food unless my life depends on it.

That looks yummie. It would be perfect if they would combine this with some of this https://organicestonia.ee/en/member/must-kuuslauk-black-garl...

It would even be more perfect if they had the option to switch to English, and send to Germany, like that site.

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.

Shanghai, Japan

That's indeed surprising, in a similar vein as if we made eating dogs a normal thing. Some cultures have (China).

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.

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.

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?

I grew up in Pennsylvania-Dutch country. Beef tongue sandwiches were apparently a thing. But I moved before I became an adventurous eater.

That is also one of the typical ingredients of "bollito misto" (mixed boiled) in Italy:

https://memoriediangelina.com/2014/01/19/il-gran-bollito-mis...

but you can also have it "by itself".

Probably a good reason to eat rabbit rather than chicken...

> it's just 'riding'

You can ride other things beside horses: bikes, motorcycles, scooters...

In English everywhere except the US, it’s “horse riding”; “horseback riding” is US English.

Definitely humorous: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5wSw3IWRJa0

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.

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.

Rabbit isn’t common in US grocery stores but Duck and Lamb are, especially around winter holidays.

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").

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

me with escargot

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.

Yes, I realize that historically in agrarian societies, common folk in particular have had a very different relationship with animals than most modern Westerners, and some people still do. I did not mean to imply that compartmentalization is something inherent or unavoidable, just that clearly in the modern Western society this sort of mental model is more or less prevalent. You’re probably right that it’s connected with our relationship with death.

In a way they do…

Agreed. I've only heard the legend in relation to land mammal carnivores.

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.

> 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.

> 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.

> 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

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.

I think 100% would be apt

He likely got you with that joke :D

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.

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.

Yup, pretty much, yeah...

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.

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.

What do Greeks do with liver and hearts?