Althouse: Hippophagy.

February 26, 2013

Hippophagy.

What's so bad about hippophagy?

35 comments:

Eric the Fruit Bat said...: The problem would be serving a roast saddle of horse.; 2/26/13, 8:39 AM
Bob said...: Apparently just about everyone in UK has been eating the stuff with no clue; if you can't distinguish the taste, what difference at this point does it make, as Hillary Clinton might say.; 2/26/13, 8:43 AM
the gold digger said...: I ate horse when I was a Peace Corps volunteer. It's not bad. Not my favorite, but that's more because we think of horses as our friends rather than as food.; 2/26/13, 8:43 AM
Darrell said...: Now Mr. Ed will never speak even if he has something to say.; 2/26/13, 8:44 AM
Wince said...: Why is everything the French do so phagy?; 2/26/13, 8:46 AM
Bob Boyd said...: I saw a little horseman baby come flying out of an IKEA store the other day. He was really moving!; 2/26/13, 8:51 AM
James Pawlak said...: I ate some when in France. Like squid, it is better if you do not think about what it looked like when alive.; 2/26/13, 8:52 AM
AllenS said...: I'm not going to look it up, but the Bible meat guidelines say something like for land animals to be considered clean, they must both chew the cud and have a divided or cloven hoof.

A horse doesn't have that feature.

So, if you eat horsemeat you are going to rot in hell.; 2/26/13, 8:53 AM
AllenS said...: There won't be many French people in Heaven, so don't take your French translation book.; 2/26/13, 8:54 AM
Darrell said...: I ate a Frenchwoman once.; 2/26/13, 8:54 AM
AllenS said...: Don't go there.; 2/26/13, 8:56 AM
Bob said...: Too late!; 2/26/13, 8:56 AM
George M. Spencer said...: Slippery slope.

Cheaper than other meats.

About 20 years ago I subscribed to an academic publication titled "The Food Insects Newsletter."

Eating insects is quite common in poor countries. In fact, the poorer the culture, the smaller the animals its people eat, just as poor people in our culture eat the vilest parts of hogs such as intestines and ankles.

Now the EU is investing $4 million into research to get people to eat bugs. (Hey, eating raw fish was bizarre 30 years ago.)

It will start at the high end--some celebrity will admit to eating high-protein insect powder as part of some preposterous diet. Then it will be sold at Whole Foods for some ungodly amount. Next it will be in Frosted Flakes.

Frosted Insect Flakes; 2/26/13, 9:19 AM
Bob Boyd said...: St George said:
"the poorer the culture, the smaller the animals its people eat"

I think that's true. Times are tough in France, for example.
These days when a little French girl says "Daddy I want a pony"....; 2/26/13, 9:31 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Everything old is new again!! The 1970's are back with a vengeance. From Anna Wintour and Michelle Obama's nifty bangs hair cuts....to the high cost of gasoline thanks to dumb Democrat policies, Welcome Back Carter...to stupid sit ins/occupy everything and protests ..to the high inflation in food costs (again thanks Democrats and ethanol), causing people to eat horse meat.

We ate horse meat in the 1970's. It wasn't bad. Better than venison. That is also when we began seriously adding filler to hamburger meat. That nasty practice is still with us.

Well...at least we don't have gas rationing, YET or polyester leisure suits.

What is that song.....When will we ever learn. Makes you want to put on some tie dyed clothing and make some macrame plant holders....right?; 2/26/13, 9:48 AM
Larry J said...: In many parts of the world, people don't have the luxury to ignore major sources of meat just because the animals are cute. Horses, dogs and cats are sources of meat in different parts of the world.

My wife is a Filipina. She says "Americans are crazy" when she hears about people spending thousands of dollars on vet bills for their pets. Actually, she says "Americans are crazy" for a lot of other reasons, too. She had dogs as pets but if they came up lame, they became dog adobo or ended up in the stew pot. She says that short haired dog tastes better than long haired dog but doesn't know why. I'll take her word for it.; 2/26/13, 9:48 AM
Aridog said...: Hippophagy utilizing domestic horses raised and kept in the United States will provide everyone's daily requirement for phenylbutazone, pyrantel pamoate, ivermectin and praziquantel. Oh, and contrary to popular mythology, wild horses, aka "Mustang", are also dosed up with the above, as well as birth control items like gonadotropin, on selected ranges.

Enjoy.; 2/26/13, 9:52 AM
Charlie Currie said...: "...just as poor people in our culture eat the vilest parts of hogs such as intestines and ankles."

Our ancestors ate snout to tail...waste not, wont not, is what my grandmother drilled into our little heads.

It's the bits we don't eat that provide the nutrients our sterilized, obesogenic diet is lacking.

Remember the buffalo hunting scene in "Dances With Wolfs"...the first thing the hunters did, was to cut out the heart and eat it...it was portrayed as a ritualistic act...this was thousands of years of evolutionary action repeating itself, this was their lizard brain saying, feed me the good stuff first.

Snout to tail eating is being talked about more and more...keep your eyes and ears open.

You don't eat a cow or a goat that still provides you milk, you don't eat a chicken that still lays eggs and you don't eat a horse that can still carry your burden.

Cheers; 2/26/13, 9:53 AM
Balfegor said...: I've eaten horse a few times, both raw and cooked. It was pretty good raw. Cooked, it was unremarkable.; 2/26/13, 9:54 AM
edutcher said...: A friend of mine's grandfather was in the Italian cavalry in WWI and he loved to tell all sorts of blood-and-thunder stories about getting stuck up in the mountains and having to live on their horses until they got to civilization.; 2/26/13, 9:57 AM
Astro said...: A friend of mine visited Paris last year. Her son is a French-trained chef and he served horsemeat for dinner one evening. She said it was delicious, once she got past the momentary hesitation to eat it.; 2/26/13, 9:59 AM
Aridog said...: Balfegor said...

I've eaten horse a few times,...

No doubt then you'd not develop worms; hook, blood or tape, for a nice period thereafter. :-)); 2/26/13, 9:59 AM
Darrell said...: Before you think you're going to go "old school" and eat everything including the squeal, look up prions. No one knew anything about them prior to the last couple of decades, and Europeans still think it is myth.

Stay away from the brain and nervous system. Your brain will thank you.; 2/26/13, 9:59 AM
Aridog said...: After serving and living in the Orient for a fair period of time, nothing eaten surprises me. Nothing.

That said, I live in the USA now and I'm happy to say I've fired at horse thieves with .30-30, .308, & .30-06 calibers, as well as 12 gauge. Don't be trying to take our $25K and up horses to sell for $0.70 to $1.00 per pound. Not sure I hit any in the dark, but if I did, I hope the fuckers suffered.; 2/26/13, 10:24 AM
Aridog said...: Darrell said...

Before you think you're going to go "old school" and eat everything including the squeal, look up prions.

Tru dat...I figure mad cow disease is the cause of most progressive activists behavior.; 2/26/13, 10:34 AM
Balfegor said...: Re: Aridog:

No doubt then you'd not develop worms; hook, blood or tape, for a nice period thereafter. :-))

Nope, no problems. This was in a civilised country (Japan), after all, not, you know, Kazakhstan or New York or someplace barbaric like that. Wouldn't risk eating horse there if I could avoid it.; 2/26/13, 10:52 AM
Rusty said...: At one time,(1960s?) wasn't government meat horse meat?Came in big cans.; 2/26/13, 10:55 AM
lgv said...: This issues are: 1) mislabeling and 2) unknown provenance of the horse meat.

Eating horse meat is no big deal. I just wouldn't want some old race horse that was shot up with lots of drugs before dying from anthrax.

I've seen the dogs hanging in the market in Bitung Indonesia. I've seen the guinea pigs waiting to be consumed while in Ecuador.; 2/26/13, 11:45 AM
Aridog said...: Balfegor said...

Re: Aridog: No doubt then you'd not develop worms; hook, blood or tape, for a nice period thereafter. :-))

Nope, no problems. This was in a civilized country (Japan), after all, not, you know, Kazakhstan or New York or someplace barbaric like that. Wouldn't risk eating horse there if I could avoid it.

Even in civilized Japan, how do you know the actual source of the horse meat...or how much of the sundry chemicals I cited are in it? Canada and Mexico ship horse meat all over the world....and there just are not enough untreated "mustangs" to fill those orders.

Rusty said...

At one time,(1960s?) wasn't government meat horse meat?Came in big cans.

Donno about "government meat" [?? Gak!] but horse meat was processed and canned for sale in the 60's and up through the early 90's in the USA...it was a commonly used dog food or dog food supplement mixed with kibble. In my state, "Lang's" was the principle supplier in the 80's and 90's...in the 50's you could buy horse meat un-ground in frozen blocks at the local pet feed store.

lgv said...

This issues are: 1) mislabeling and 2) unknown provenance of the horse meat.

Certainly, mystery provenance as I said, and lately Ikea meatballs, et al.

I, too, have seen animals not usually eaten here raised specifically food elsewhere...dogs in Korea for example. Pretty good chance they aren't contaminated with toxic chemicals...however, there is no certainty of that with horse meat. None.

It amuses me how foodies can be so concerned about growth hormones in cattle but no worry about gonadotropin in mystery meat.

My other amusement is the term "organic" as applied to food today. Thanks to my Asian interlude, "Organic" means simply "raised in human shit" to me....not to mention that everything that ever lived is organic.

But what the hell, we east fish, right...and they fuck and shit in the water we catch them in, right?; 2/26/13, 12:13 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: Hippophagy is icky. Next.

Same thing that's wrong with eating dog or marrying your adult, sterile sister. It's a premise, not a conclusion.

Not everything has to be derived rationally from some general principle.; 2/26/13, 1:00 PM
Rusty said...: Air.
I seem to recall that when I went to Outward Bound that alot of the canned meat was horse meat. It didn't taste bad, just different.; 2/26/13, 1:14 PM
Aridog said...: Rusty said...

Ari...I seem to recall that when I went to Outward Bound that a lot of the canned meat was horse meat. It didn't taste bad, just different.

Would depend upon the years, but I recall no warning or prohibition for human consumption on the can's of Lang's Horse Meat. that might be because I didn't look for it ... can't check now as it is no longer available.

Where on earth of Outward Bound sites did you go where they fed you horse meat? Just curious. Don't recall that at OB or any other adventure/conditioning/training outfit. Or I was oblivious...not impossible.

I did eat caught & cooked snake...and no, it doesn't taste like chicken, it tastes like wads of week old bubble gum. There really is a good reason for Tabasco red pepper and Melinda's habanero sauces.; 2/26/13, 1:48 PM
traditionalguy said...: They say that Napoleon's Grande Armee could not be stopped until he ran out of horses deep inside Russia. Its Calvary tactics, artillery hauling, and food itself gave out when the horses gave out.

And then along came machine guns.; 2/26/13, 1:51 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: Aridog:

Even in civilized Japan, how do you know the actual source of the horse meat...or how much of the sundry chemicals I cited are in it? Canada and Mexico ship horse meat all over the world....and there just are not enough untreated "mustangs" to fill those orders.

Fair enough. I knew the restaurant owner, though, and it was a restaurant specialising in horseflesh. I had thought it was domestic, but I see here that sometimes horsemeat from unclean Canada was at one point sold as domestic Japanese horsemeat, provided the horse had spent at least 3 months in Japan. So perhaps I was deceived. Well, it comes down to whom you trust.; 2/26/13, 2:44 PM
Aridog said...: Balfegor ... Not to ruin you remaining faith, but Canadian horse meat = American horse meat if acquired in the past 30 years that I'm aware of...the kill buyers all export to Mexico or Canada. More so now with the American slaughter houses gone since 2007 or so.

You obviously didn't suffer from the various potential chemical contaminations, so all is well than ends well.

In Korea, although there is a specific breed or type of dog that is raised and preferred for meat, you will also note a distinct lack of stray dogs roaming around rural areas of the country. In such rural areas, if you buy something from the pushcart vendors, such as Yaki-Mon-Do [a wonton wrapped kind of egg-rollish dumpling] you can pretty well bet the vendor didn't shop at the butcher shop for pork or beef. :); 2/26/13, 3:34 PM