Giddyup

 

I’m tutoring conversational English in Toulouse now. It has been very interesting discussing the topic of horse meat being found hither and thither in our food. The students are aware of it, but generally the feeling is: ‘Horse meat is okay to eat. But food should be labelled so that we know what we are eating.’

In France, there are specialized butcher shops (boucheries chevalines) that sell horse meat, and since the 1990s, it can be found in supermarket butcher shops and others. Horse meat was famously eaten in large amounts during the 1870 Siege of Paris, when it was even included in haute cuisine menus.  It is slightly sweet, tender and low in fat.

I ask the students whether they think we eat horse meat in New Zealand. ‘Why, yes of course. Pourqoui pas?’ they respond. I explain that we consider horse meat to be along the lines of cat meat or dog meat, that is, it’s something we just don’t eat. Apparently, the Food Standards Code of Australia and New Zealand definition of ‘meat’ does not include horse. Oh, but hang on, except for animals; they eat them. I remember passing a farm on the Bombay Hills on the way to Auckland when I was young, and seeing a lot of horses. ‘That’s the dog meat factory,’ my parents would say, and I was quite horrified to think that those lovely, gracious, noble creatures would be slaughtered and divvied up into chunks and canned for doggies to eat.

However, living in France can change your perspective on a few things, like what’s suitable to eat. I guess it’s like living in Asia where food takes on a whole new dimension, where boiled chicken feet is a delicacy (I’ve been offered it!), and mouldy tofu deep-fried in rancid oil is a treat (yes, I used to smell it and quickly cover my nose before I hopped off the ferry each day in Hong Kong).

So now I think, what’s wrong with horse meat? I’m not vegetarian although my appetite tends that way quite a lot. Here’s what my French friend Marijo says about the whole ‘what’s up with our food and what’s this about horse meat?’ affair:

“There are many stories about processed food but we all prefer to forget that! One hears of ‘spoiled’ meat mixed with fresh meat, additives added to change the flavour, to ‘glue’ pieces of meat between them… Fruits and vegetables are washed with bleach to kill germs in many restaurants or canteens (this is the case in the school canteen here, for example). The animals are treated with antibiotics too and it becomes dangerous to humans too, etc.

Regarding horse meat, I remember we ate it when I was little. It’s not bad. The eating of horse meat comes from Napoleon’s time, when French soldiers began to eat the horses in order to avoid dying of hunger while fighting in Russia, and they found that it was good.”

A couple of restaurants I’ve been to in Toulouse recently have had haché au cheval on their menus, which is basically a horse meat pattie. Well, at least that’s clear. I was tempted but I wanted the carpaccio de bœuf instead (shaved slivers of raw beef served with a vinegar-y sauce).

But really, I can’t say it better than this… in the words of British comedian Jack Dee on the British TV show, 8 out of 10 cats, last week, “If you buy 150 burgers for ₤1.50 from your discount meat warehouse, what do you expect will be in them? Just be thankful it’s horse!”