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| Whistlejacket, by George Stubbs, 1762 |
The current European scandal over horse meat showing up in Ikea's cheap Swedish meatballs is felt most queasily in Britain, the traditional center of not eating horses. The horsemeat taboo landscape is complicated:
Horse is commonly eaten in many countries in Europe and Asia.[14][15][16] It is not a generally available food in some English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, the US,[17] and English Canada. It is also taboo in Argentina, [18] Brazil, Israel, and among the Romani people, as well as Jewish people the world over. Horse meat is not generally eaten in Spain (except in the north), although the country exports horses both "on the hoof and on the hook" (i.e., live animals and slaughtered meat) for the French and Italian market. Horse meat is consumed in some North American and Latin American countries, and is illegal in some countries. For example, the Food Standards Code of Australia and New Zealand definition of 'meat' does not include horse.[19] In Tonga, horse meat is eaten nationally, and Tongan emigrees living in the United States, New Zealand and Australia have retained the taste for it, claiming Christian missionaries originally introduced it to them.[20] In the past, horse has been eaten by Persians, Turks, some hanafi Egyptians, and Tatars; but it has never been eaten in the Maghreb.
Yet, the central thread is that the English-speaking peoples don't think much of eating horses.
Why not?
I'd guess that it's because England has always been a relatively rich country, allowing the English to develop a more than purely utilitarian relationships with their horses. For example, modern thoroughbred racing emerged in 18th Century England.
I'm not sure if Whistlejacket is a direct ancestor to any current racehorses, but some of his ancestors, such as the Byerley Turk, had many descendants competing in last year's Kentucky Derby. The genealogy of thoroughbreds is better understood than the genealogy of most people, and this helps get people to think of horses as individuals.
The French painter Gericault painted numerous horse and racecourse scenes, but only after visiting England. In Paris, the Jockey Club was frequented by Anglophiles. In Anna Karenina's horse-racing scene, the assembled Russian toffs remark that horse racing is central to the British ascendancy.
The Roma (Gypsies) are poor as hell and consider hedgehog a delicacy, but would never, ever eat horse. It's both considered mahrime (unclean) and a cruel use of a magnificent animal. And these are people who specialize in torturing bears into becoming performing animals.
ReplyDelete@steve - "Why don't the English eat horses?"
ReplyDeleteaccording to one historian, it's 'cause the early church knocked it out of them:
How Christianity stopped Anglo-Saxon England eating horsemeat: Church officials claimed it was 'pagan' food
@anonymous - "The Roma (Gypsies) are poor as hell and consider hedgehog a delicacy, but would never, ever eat horse. It's both considered mahrime (unclean) and a cruel use of a magnificent animal."
interesting!
We are Brahmins; we dont eat any meat.
ReplyDeleteThe British Empire was built and defended with ships and horses. I think British officers were always much fonder of their horses than they were of the working class men in the ranks.
ReplyDeleteThe English look down on cruelty to animals more than other peoples. All sorts of animal rights campaigning, vegetarianism, etc. seem to be more popular among them than among other groups. Why? No idea.
ReplyDeleteThe French are famous for sensuality. Taste above all else. I remember reading an article about hog castration. Lots of Euro countries have banned it because it's cruel, the French have not banned it because (according to the article, at least) castration improves taste. That's a glimpse into people's priorities.
On horse racing: all European aristocracies loved horses. The English aristocracy was more involved in horse racing than other aristocracies because the English pioneered organized sports in general.
I'd guess that it's because England has always been a relatively rich country...
ReplyDeleteWhy is that?
Google "basashi". You'd be surprised how good this can be...
ReplyDeleteWhat a country - whale and horse meat is ok. And genuine tortoiseshell guitar picks are freely available in many music shops.
Leviticus 11
ReplyDeleteThen the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 2 “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel.
“Of all the land animals, these are the ones you may use for food. 3 You may eat any animal that has completely split hooves and chews the cud. 4 You may not, however, eat the following animals[a] that have split hooves or that chew the cud, but not both. The camel chews the cud but does not have split hooves, so it is ceremonially unclean for you. 5 The hyrax[b] chews the cud but does not have split hooves, so it is unclean. 6 The hare chews the cud but does not have split hooves, so it is unclean. 7 The pig has evenly split hooves but does not chew the cud, so it is unclean. 8 You may not eat the meat of these animals or even touch their carcasses. They are ceremonially unclean for you."
So - there is your answer!!
- Broodrack
The British isles are wet, hilly and compact with lots of navigable rivers for transport, in other words poor horse country but excellent cattle and sheep country. For most of history cattle and sheep have been extremely common(the Irish for road bothár literally means the cow's way) but horses less so. Too expensive and unnecessary. Horses would have been luxury goods. Eating horse would be like using gold as a poker. Dogs have always been quite common in our islands so any spare meat from horses would have a use. I imagine this combination of luxury and its association with dogs would contribute to a strong taboo.
ReplyDeleteI don't but Steve's "the English are rich so they don't eat horse" explanation. The English eat all kinds of crap. Ever heard of turnips?
I'm not sure of the original cause, perhaps there isn't one. But once a food aversion takes hold, it tends to remain in place, even thousands of years later (i.e., pork in Palestine). England doesn't eat horse today because it didn't eat it yesterday.
ReplyDeleteMy late mother, the arch-WASP who grew up in an affluent household in the 1930s, was quite familiar with the taste and smell of horse meat because they owned dogs. Back in the day, you could not just go down and buy a 50lb back of kibbles at Petco. I'm sure their dogs ate better than some of the starving children in Europe my parents would evoke every time we did not eat our peas at dinner.
ReplyDeleteHorse meat is delicious! The flavor is very unique and the fat tastes great. (And yes, horses are much dumber than pigs). Dog meat, on the other hand, is really nothing special - it's not even particularly distinct.
ReplyDeletePeople who eat bovine testicles but frown upon horse prime cut are really strange...
It's because we made a pact with the animal when we domesticated it.
ReplyDeleteWe domesticated the animal to be our companion, not our food.
It's a promise.
The Queen's grand daughter Zara, cries as her horse is retired. We dont eat horses - end of.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the American horsemeat taboo got strong until recently. The French have long eaten horsemeat, and when I was a child in the San Gabriel Valley (SoCal, near L.A.) in the 1960's-70's horse was on French restaurant menus and my mother could and did buy horse (no, not intended for dog food!) in the local butcher shop and serve it at home.
ReplyDeleteOnly in the last 20 years have the animal-rights fanatics, playing on the American woman's childish fantasy of horses as magical companions (most American women now have never even smelt a horse that wasn't eleven inches tall with a shiny pink plastic-fiber mane hanging down to its jewel-sparkly hooves) managed to get the slaughter of horses outlawed (first for consumption domestically, then even for export-- so horses for food are now exported on the hoof).
Still, at some level we probably can blame the taboo on the English. Besides inventing the animal-rights whackos, they planted the virus of refusal to eat horses in American culture, though American pragmatism delayed eruption of the full-blown disease until American society was fairly ill in other ways.
In her wonderful survey book "Food in History," Reay Tannahill explains that an attempt was made in the mid-1800's to improve the protein intake of the English by popularizing horsemeat but the English were unreceptive, regarding the eating of horseflesh "almost on a par with cannibalism."
ReplyDeleteIf we ate horse, do you really expect that My Friend Flicka would long remain our friend?
If cars were made of flesh and blood no one would eat them for the same reason that most people declined to eat horse: you don't consume your cheapest, most dependable mode of transport.
I have to stop thinking about this topic, lest I allow it to get my goat.
I remember an episode of All in the Family where Meathead tries to convince Archie of the virtues of horse as a meat.
ReplyDeleteSo at least in the US in the 1970s horse meat was probably neutral to or inclined towards the left side of the political gradient.
People that depend on horses to live probably weren't all that inclined to eat horses. (Perhaps the example of the Roma show this.)
ReplyDeleteVery likely this was the case with the early Anglo-Norman nobility as well. Horses were essential to Norman warfare. Combining horses and ships was one of the reasons for their success; the ability to conduct a massed horse charge was a critical weapon. The Normans likely would not have won at the Battle of Hastings and taken over England if not for their horses:
"The battle also established the superiority of the combined arms attack over an army predominately composed of infantry, demonstrating the effectiveness of archers, cavalry and infantry working cooperatively. The dominance of cavalry forces over infantry would continue until the emergence of the longbow,...
Horses were expensive and necessary for a military campaign, particularly an "overseas" campaign in France or the Med. You had to move fast after landing. All the Norman military campaigns and then the Hundred Years War meant even old horses pulling the baggage carts were probably key military resources. Not something you want the peasants eating.
This isn't to say that the Church wasn't influential. Norman nobility were often also churchmen, even if not necessarily pious. (Reading and writing was a valuable military skill.) The Norman second-in-command at Hastings was William's half-brother, the Bishop Odo of Bayeux. (He is probably responsibly for the Bayeux Tapestry. He later tried to invade Italy, perhaps to make himself Pope. "That bishops shall restrain from warfare is really a pious wish not easily in this sinful world to be granted.")
i'm with the brits n gypsies on this one. horses are noble creatures, served humans for hundreds of years.
ReplyDeletei don't eat cat or dog either.
http://youtu.be/HCYU_WylviY?t=6m20s
ReplyDeletebaby cow.
people who eat veal are sick in the head. i mean how can anyone kill a baby? let it grow first.
I have it in virtual memory, swapped out to disk (ie, not in RAM, and definitely not in cache) that one of the big Greek three (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) considered a man's horse to be more valuable than his wife. Quick googling doesn't find it, but it could be relevant
ReplyDeleteVenison is considered a delicacy despite "Bambi".
ReplyDeleteComing back to the Anglo-Saxon fondness for things equine, the British community in Peking started taking the incipient Boxer Revolution seriously only after they burnt down the Peking Turf Club. And every major Eastern city in the British Empire (Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang) had its Turf Club.
But the English never had a problem feeding horse meat to cats and dogs.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the source of the taboo. I suspect that in former times horses were working animals and never kept as livestock as such, after a lifetime of work, they were killed when no longer useful, therefore the carcass was, i a way, not deemed as 'farm raised meat', but waste of sorts.
In fact the horse-knancker made use of every part of the horse, the skin was used for leather, the mane was used for plastering walls, the meat boiled up and sold in the street as 'cats and dogs meat', the bones and hoofs boiled up to make wood glue and gelatine.
Apparently the french only took to eating horse in a big way after the deprivations of the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian war.
ReplyDelete"horses are noble creatures, served humans for hundreds of years."
ReplyDeleteYou think they served us cuz they were 'noble'? They had no choice. And they served all sides. Horses carried the mongol horde to Russia to pillage and rape women. No, I don't blame horses, but they serve any master who rides them. That aint noble. Now dogs don't serve all masters. That's why they are special.
It's like War Horse the movie. Horse will serve all sides.
I say let's not kill horses because they are magnificent and beautiful. 'Fascist' reason? So what?
And I say let's not kill pigs because they are smart. Also, the original wild boar is a great looking beask. It aint pretty but it's striking. When domesticated pigs are released into the wild, they eventually regain their ferocious form.
Kurosawa had a great way with horses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlcLQho9MpI
The Battle of Waterloo - Charge of the British Heavy Cavalry
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/7vlcuvrM1po
With Fire and Sword
http://youtu.be/mD6UkzJs9h0?t=44s
big country
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ogmIDd040U
" We are Brahmins; we dont eat any meat."
ReplyDeleteBrahmins can't hold themselves up in too high of a light for their culinary habits, they've got that whole "pee drinking" thing going on.
They don't eat 'em, just make glue out of 'em
ReplyDeleteTough old horses probably taste tough and old. When the British were flogging aging milk-cart horses to death on icy streets in the 30s, it probably wasn't sentimentality that kept them from eating horse. And since widespread malnutrition (naked bone-skinny people along river streets) was normal in England through the 30s, any very strong sentiment would have been up against a real enemy. Cat's Meat's Man, appalled at eating horse? Coney-catchers, shocked?
ReplyDeleteSelf-righteous lies from grass-fed advertising aside, tasty animals are the ones that spend most of their lives just standing around getting fat and juicy. England is good country for sheep, who stand around getting fat and tasty. Again, Frog-eaters and other wogs starting at Calais eat horse, thus, no non-homosexual Briton would.
Or maybe horse tastes too good to be wasted on British cooks.
"You think they served us cuz they were 'noble'? They had no choice."
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone has ever thought that horses had moral agency.
The taboo on eating hare is an interesting one. These animals are damned elusive, and even the typical countryside dweller might go his whole life without seeing one in the wild. The biblical explanation is unconvincing, as rabbits are and always have been widely eaten across Europe. I guess the latter are simply much easier to catch, and the relative difficulty of catching the hare eventually morphs into a respect for his survival instinct and thus a feedback loop is formed. No coincidence that horse and hare are both supreme athletes, while pig, sheep and rabbit aren't.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I suspect hare doesn't taste too good. Even so, it is a surprisingly heavily mythologized animal.
(I posted this on the Bacon Cocktail thread in error, when it was meant for this one. Sorry to inflict it twice.)
ReplyDeleteShaggy dog story: In grad school I worked in the library sorting maps. My boss told me that the fellow who had the job before me saved his cash and made a bike tour of the Philippine countryside.
He told her that at one rural home he spent an afternoon playing with the family dog. Later, they invited him in for dinner, and made a big deal out of it as he was probably the first foreign guest they'd ever had.
He was impressed, and said, "This is pretty good meat. We must be sure to save some for the dog."
The family had a raucous good laugh. That's when he realized just where the dog was...
This Anglo-Saxon has no personal ban on consuming horse meat. I don't think it makes much sense. If we're going to keep horses, why not put them to good use when their time's up?
ReplyDeleteThat most of those who won't eat horse have little problem serving it to other animals shows that the taboo is fundamentally based on our relationship to the animal. Horses and dogs are the only two animals that will die for their master. Only horses and dogs are used for emotional therapy. They are part of the family--the more so a society is civilized. We aren't cannibals. We don't just name horses, we treat them as individuals, even heroes: Rocinante, Bucephalus, etc. No other animal could have replaced the protagonist in the Black Stallion. A man feels one with a horse when riding him. Remember that small-L liberalism, with its respect for persons, has long flourished in England. It is no accident that the epitome of cruelty in Brothers Karamazov is the ragged horse being whipped in its eye.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as Aristotle noted, horses are the most beautiful animal. Why sacrifice beauty for mere utility unless you absolutely have to? We are not barbarians. I can't think of any beautiful animal we eat, except for exceedingly rare songbirds.
"All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife."--Daniel Boone
How Christianity stopped Anglo-Saxon England eating horsemeat: Church officials claimed it was 'pagan' food
ReplyDeleteVery likely - also horsemeat might have bean "peasant" food too. The lords didn't eat it, and soon enough it would be shameful for commoners to do the same.
Veal is nearly always baby (dairy) bull, not baby (dairy) cow. Not much call for extra xy-bovines on a dairy farm, unless the breeding bull or any draft oxen (if the operation is organic/traditional) are about to be retired. Veal has its roots in the principle "waste not, want not", like most food traditions.
ReplyDeleteSteve, you should write an article about horse genealogy and how it compares to HBD.
ReplyDeleteI had a discussion recently with an avid horse racing fan about the insane prices that are paid for well-bred race horses.
Horses are not all equal, at least not according to the marketplace.
When it comes to people, though...
Suggested title: "Horses for Courses."
If cars were made of flesh and blood no one would eat them for the same reason that most people declined to eat horse: you don't consume your cheapest, most dependable mode of transport.
ReplyDeleteI have to stop thinking about this topic, lest I allow it to get my goat.
That might work if horses had ever been the cheapest, most dependable mode of transport, but they haven't.
Horses were for people with money. Donkeys and mules were how most people got around.
@anon 7:52 AM
ReplyDeleteYou wrote that hares are so elusive,"even the typical countryside dweller might go his whole life without seeing one in the wild".
Where do you live?
In suburban central NJ, they are everywhere in the summer months. They breed like rabbits!
Their only predators seem to be cats, as far as I can tell. I've often wondered if anyone eats them anymore.
There might be a problem with their wholesomeness, though - they eat a diet of grass heavily polluted with fertilizer and other chemicals.
There was a time in the mid to late 70s when many US supermarkets sold horse meat. It did not last that long but there was no widespread outcry against it, it just wan't a preferred flavor of meat.
ReplyDeleteI have eaten horsemeat on several occasions and found it pleasant when cooked properly. I'd eat it if it were it served here.
I don't know, I'd happily eat them (and probably have!). Sure they are magnificent animals, but they are not nearly as smart as pigs - and pigs are delicious.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure there's really much visceral concern among most Brits over this 'scare'.
I agree with the cannibalism way of thinking - except i think that way of thinking might only take hold in places that had better meat available anyway e.g. beef?
ReplyDeleteWhy don't the English eat horsemeat?
ReplyDeleteBecause beef was plentiful. Much of the initial work on breeding strains of cattle that would bulk up under cultivation was done in Britain. Before that, cattle were generalists who could live through tough times but didn't produce a lot of any single resource.
The same thing has happened with crop plants - the generalist strains that didn't produce wildly have been discarded in favor of specialized strains that require pampering but produce wildly.
" Horses and dogs are the only two animals that will die for their master. Only horses and dogs are used for emotional therapy."
ReplyDeleteSo are cats. And I have some awesome stories about cats who tried defending their people. They are not exactly to be counted on in that way, as dogs, but some are pretty protective to the extent they can be. Also eerily psychic. When I was having a rough time on the road, my cat was always at the window waiting with an anxious look on his face.
"Much of the initial work on breeding strains of cattle that would bulk up under cultivation was done in Britain. Before that, cattle were generalists who could live through tough times but didn't produce a lot of any single resource."
ReplyDeleteTrue and under-appreciated. Also interesting is how late purposeful breeding of livestock started. This was not something lost in the mists of time:
"Robert Bakewell (1725–1795) was a British agriculturalist, now recognized as one of the most important figures in the British Agricultural Revolution.
Bakewell is particularly notable as the first to implement systematic selective breeding of livestock.
...
Robert Bakewell was the first to breed cattle to be used primarily for beef. Previously, cattle were first and foremost kept for pulling ploughs as oxen[citation needed], but he crossed long-horned heifers and a Westmoreland bull to eventually create the Dishley Longhorn. As more and more farmers followed his lead, farm animals increased dramatically in size and quality. In 1700, the average weight of a bull sold for slaughter was 370 pounds (168 kg). By 1786, that weight had more than doubled to 840 pounds (381 kg)."
Bakewell directly influenced Darwin:
"In On the Origin of Species he cited Bakewell's work as demonstrating variation under domestication, in which methodical breeding during Bakewell's lifetime led to considerable modification of the forms and qualities of his cattle, ..."
That must have surely given Darwin confidence.
This was so recent that it might not have influenced the horse meat taboo. But England might still have had more beef than most places. Weren't many of those raids on France during the Hundred Years War basically cattle raids? I can't see how the Normans, who imposed forest law to protect game animals and the forests they lived in, by prohibiting what the general population could hunt, would allow the country to get a taste for horse meat. Or themselves to eat, for that matter. `
"He was impressed, and said, "This is pretty good meat. We must be sure to save some for the dog."
ReplyDeleteThe family had a raucous good laugh. That's when he realized just where the dog was..."
god awful -- I want to cry -- and I'm not being facetius. While I'm not a vegetarian I feel a sort of sad emptiness at the thought of eating ,,, I've seen tpoo many pictures a haunted looking dogs & cats in Korean markets staring at psychopaths who beat them to dath slowly because it's supposed to make the meat more tasty. A Sikh guy I knew was in Korea and came home loathing them because of this. The Sikh was no animal rights activist, but he had some humanity.