It was already galloping away?
Dogs tend to wind up on the menu during failed Antarctic expeditions.
Eating horse meat wouldn’t bother me if it was horses farmed for meat. Not retired race horses or farm animals. If my host pulled the “surprise” maneuver on me I’d think they were a jerk but I wouldn’t make a big deal of it.
Dog? No way in Hell. Same for cats. The thought of it is as disgusting to me as cannibalism. If someone “surprised” me with dog meat I don’t know I’d do. Probably turbo barf all over the table, probably throw the meat or the whole plate at them, and go hysterical.
I would knowingly eat placenta. Not too much of it, because i think it’s high in hormones that the gut might not completely digest. And I’d want some assurances regarding the health of the mother. (Fun fact, the placenta is actually part of the baby, not the mother. But I’d still inquire as to her health, since they are linked.)
I don’t know that I’d be comfortable eating mystery meat at all, except in some scenario where there was a language barrier making it hard to convey that information. (I had some mystery meat in a buffet in the czech republic for that reason, once. It was disgusting. I never learned what animal it came from, but i didn’t eat much of it because it tasted terrible. I have also eaten delicious meat in the czech republic, but boy, that was awful.)
Thus Monty learns about the short answer vs the Jewish answer. 
The only situations I normally encounter about refusing to eat a particular food is when I’m offered some venison, which I don’t eat.
It’s not because I feel bad for the deer; you can go ahead and shoot Bambi’s mom as far as I’m concerned. It’s a health concern. I feel that the possibility of humans contracting CWD has not been sufficiently disproven.
I ate horse meat many years ago, it was served by my high school buddy’s parents. I thought it was beef but I had never tasted anything like it before. Other that being a bit chewy, it tasted good. I later ate some in a stew. They raised horses themselves but they would never eat them, my buddy’s sister was a budding equestrian star.
That could be anything in life: the short _________ vs. the Jewish _________.
I wouldn’t have a problem with horse meat (I’ve eaten horse sausage before – I didn’t much like it, not so much because of the taste – that was fine – it was just too lean to make a good sausage. I guess you can fix that my adding fatback in in the griding process, but might as well eat pig at that point.)
Dog I’d be a bit irked by.
Regardless, one shouldn’t “surprise” guests with an exotic main course, especially one which one knows would upset/offent a lot of people. For that reason, I would be upset with the host, not that I’m eating horse, but rather that he/she is a dick.
I’m with @wolfpup here. Not only am I moving away from red meat, but I know a lot of horses and dogs, including my own, that I like much better than I like most people. So someone trying to trick me into eating horse or dog would piss me off.
Many, may years ago, I had a boyfriend who participated in a moose hunt and actually ended up bringing home some moose meat. I was not interested in trying it. Of course, he was not the kind of person who would let someone else make their own choice, so at a later time he and friend spiced it all up and wrapped it in bacon and put on the grill. They told me it was beef. I tasted it, said eh, it’s okay (to be nice) but didn’t eat anymore of it. They jumped up and down like a couple of five-year-olds, chortling and chanting “you ate moose meat!” Yeah, we broke up not too long after that.
Another time, maybe ten years ago now, I was traveling with several other people from my office over to the rural side of the state. A local business group put on a big barbecue for everyone. Word got out that the stew they were serving contained squirrel, rattlesnake, grouse, and I think, elk. They thought it was hilarious to try to show the folks from the other side of the state how different (read that: tougher, more manly) their rural counterparts were, although I strongly doubt any of them regularly ate that way. They did not serve any other entrée or meat dish other than the stew. The few side dishes disappeared very quickly. I went back to the hotel very hungry that night, having “dined” on a few chips and carrot sticks.
This would be my primary objection in the US as well.
This sort of thing really pisses me off. I happen to like game meat but I completely understand that not everyone does and feel no compulsion to force the issue. I think I’ve mentioned my mother-in-law who simply did not like meat in any form. Why on Earth would I try to trick her or argue her into eating it? She’s an adult, she can make her own choices. I also told her that I was happy to eat vegetarian and she was in no way obligated to provide meat for me, either.
That sort of stunt just alienates people and, if anything, makes them more reluctant to try things.
I like venison and have a very good venison stew. My spouse had had bad experiences with game meat growing up and had zero interest in it. I said fine, I’ll make it for myself, you don’t have to have any of it, I’ll eat it when I come home late from work and have to get my own dinner. So that’s the way it was. After a few times of heating up my “Bambi stew” my spouse said hey, that actually does smell good, can I try it? I said sure. Turns out he liked my venison stew. Great. But if he had never asked to try it I would have been OK with that, too. What is it about tricking/forcing people to eat stuff gets peoples’ rocks off? I just don’t understand it.
I bought a beef heart because i was curious about it. I bright it home and my husband said, “ick, you don’t expect me to eat that do you?”
During the trough of pandemic meat shortages, he agreed to eat it if i disguised it, and didn’t remind him what it was. Even so, i warned him i was making keema from it. (And didn’t remind him what it was when it was on the table.) I thought it was delicious. He thought it tasted a little suspicious. I doubt I’ll buy another beef heart.
I have had horse in Japan, if they had told me it was beef I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. Wouldn’t turn my nose up at dog, but agree the host in the OP is being a bit of a jerk.
Am reminded of an incident from my childhood. Grandpa shot a big rattlesnake up on the mountain and brought it home for Grandma to cook. They (and my parents) were afraid the kids wouldn’t eat it so they told us it was chicken. I don’t remember noticing anything about the flavor, but do remember thinking it had a lot of ribs for a chicken. They told us what it really was fairly shortly afterwards (maybe the same day, it was a long time ago and I don’t remember for sure). Never stood out as more than “that was interesting” for me.
Thanks! I guess I was more interested in how you navigated the cultural bit surrounding meat consumption. I didn’t actually think there was any scriptural conflict.
Like so many other asshole moves, it’s all about power and control. Some people get off on forcing or coercing others into acts or behaviors they find objectionable because it feels transgressive and they get off on the power of having more information/control over the situation than the other person. Same behavior that causes online trolling, it gives their little micro-organs a shiver to push someone else into poor behavior. Some people never do get over being toddlers who just discovered that “no” has power.
Please remember that I’ve been a vegetarian my whole adult life, so I don’t understand where a lot of people’s feelings are coming from-- and I do get that because dogs are omnivores they could be infected with a lot of parasites horses wouldn’t have.
But why isn’t meat just meat? What makes a dog’s life more valuable than a horse’s? or a horse’s more valuable than a cow’s?
Most of us have known pet dogs, and feel some kinship with them. Many have ridden horses and have emotional relationships with them, too.
That they routinely form social bonds with humans makes them feel like people, not like food.
FWIW, most predators classify other creatures as “to be socialized with” or “prey”, and that’s one reason why it’s important to socialize puppies to recognize cats as “companions” not as “prey”. Dogs who don’t socialize with cats when they are puppies tend to eat cats when they come across them. That’s not the dog being a sociopath or anything, it just has classified cats as prey (which is the default for other species, generally.) Similarly, kittens who are raised with other pets of “prey” animals can grow up socializing with mice or parakeets or whatever, rather than hunting them.
Different neurons fire when predators attack prey than when they attack rivals. They engage different parts of the brain.
People are more complicated than dogs and cats, but we also distinguish between “companions” and “food”. As a long-time herbivore, you may not think of any animals as food, but most people do. That doesn’t mean we eat people, though. And we tend to feel the same aversion to eating animals that we socialize with as we do to eating other people.
If I were ever in a starvation situation, my FIRST choice would be to eat people who died in the crash before I’d kill anything, even a rodent.
Just so everyone knows, I do not give dinner parties where I try to trick people into eating wacky stuff.
Re the dog: It’s not because the animal’s life is more valuable than another’s; it’s because of the unbridled cruelty involved in “properly preparing” dogmeat.